The Pensacola journal., 1920-02-08
CANADIAN PHYSICIAN BELIEVES
INFLUENZA VICTIMS ARE IMMUNE
FROM SECOND SEICE OF DISEASE
DIR. HI. c. Church, Who Has
Made Study of Epidemic, Be-
lieves Grippe Prevalent
FLU LIKE BLACK DEATH
Thinks Deadly Disease Which
Swept World Last Year Sim
liar 14th Century Plague
(By George HambIeton)


Ottawa, Ont, Feb. 7.-Dr. H c.
| Church of Ottawa places no credence
| in a1armist reports that the North
American continent is threatened with
another epidemic of flu.
| He has been making a special study
of the disease. He believes that there
will never be another epidemic of in
fIuenza in this generation and that the
great majority, at least, of cases now
i called Spanish influenza are but ag-
! gravated cases OF the grippe.
Dr. Church bases his contention on
the belief that the flu is a contagious
disease which makes the person who
has suffered from it immune, whereas
one may have the grippe any number
of times: in fact, one attack of the
grippe seems to make the person suf-
fering from it even more apt to con-
tract it again.
So far as DIR. Church knows, there
has been no authentic report of the
same person contracting flu second
time.
But what about the people who did
not get the flu last year.? asked.
They are very probably immune
he replied. Because never in the
history of the world has there been
!
demic. Almost everyone must have
been exposed. Do you know that in
quite large sections of South Africa
the black populations were entirely
wiped out; while in India there were
over seven million deaths from flu
reported. You may well imagine there
We're many more not reported"
What do you think of Edison's sug-
gestion that the earth in it's orbit may
have struck a poisonous gas which
started the growth of this flu germ
and that without this gas the germ
would never have affected humanity
and there would have been no plague?'
ct doesn't seem logical to me.
know that there We're islands in the
South Seas where half the population
died from the disease last year, and
it was said that no one could have
carried it there-hence the contagion
may have been in the air-yet I think
someone must have carried it."
"Win merchandise carry it?"
1--WE know nothing about the flu
germ yet. Thousands of medical men
are on the trail of it now.
DIR. Church says that any communi-
ty is liable to an epidemic of grippe
when there has been a prolonged dry
spell accompanied Dy neaVy WlnuS,
for these winds carry the grippe germ.
$50 the grippe has n germ too?'
ooh. undoubtedly, discovered long
ago by DR.. Pfeiffer-the Pfieffer germ,
and the disease is very contagious al
though less so than flu. Moreover the
symptoms of the grippe and flu are
different.
."There is one symptom OF flu dt-
ferent from that of any other disease.
7 have observed that flu patients fire.
uuently contracted pneumonia, but the
difference between the grippe, Tor ex-
annie. was that the patient would
cough bright red blood, not dark blood
of regular pneumonia
Then there are other differences. Flu
attacks people in the prime or lie,
whereas the grippe particularly at
tacks old people and those who nave
been hard drinkers. The lungs, when
affected by grippe, become hard hKe
leather. But the flu attacks primarily
the blood and breaks it down so that
r. oozes through the mucous membrane
of the nose and throat passages ana
through the lung tissues. Hemofrn
ages are very frequent
SO DIR. Church contends that the
cases called mild flu this winter are
really the grippe. He is inclined 10 pc
love that the epidemic last year
was much the same as the Black Dea'h
In the fourteenth century.