The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-02-20
INDIANS USING
 NOISE TO END
 FLU" EPIDEMIC

 while medical men in the United l States are endeavoring to isolate and ! combat the germ of influenza with all the scientific aids available, Baptist medical missionaries assigned to h. d4a report that similar scourges there are being met with the most primitive methods The campaign of prevention in many sections of India, according to the Baptist workers there, consists of kind1fng fires in the streets. beating upon drums and ringing bells to frighten away the evu spirits of the flu It appears that timely medica- tion and care by the Baptist mission aries has been a prominent factor in decreasing Lndfa's mortality rate from influenza.
 Baptist medical missionaries who fought the 'sf1u'' in India during the epidemic in 191S-19 found they had to combat not only the disease but also age old superstitions of 8 people to whom the first principles of san ttatfon are unknown. In spite of thafr best efforts the epidemic caused a frightful mortality, the number of { deaths from this cause alone having exceeded, according to the best esti- mates, the total number of persons killed in the world war.
 
 1 disease, instead of allowing him to , sleep everything possible is done to 1 keep him awake. The natives believe that fe he is allowed to sleep the H. ness will prove fatal, and the entire house Is kept in an upr0ar to prevent the patient from getting even short nap. Drums are beaten, he is forced to swallow strong coffee, and if these measures prove ineffective red pep
 Iii TTc- vent his closing them.
 The priests chant hong incantatfons and sometimes fin an effort to cure the disease the scalp is turned back and a poisonous drug sealed into the opening with lime.
 In it's mission field on the west coast of the Bay of Bengal, with a population of 6,OoO,ooO, the Ameri- can Northern Baptists have six hos p4tak and ten dispensaries, and are erecting another large hospital at OngoIe. They propose to extend their : work by erection and equipment of 7 two new hospitals for women at Pal mur and HaDumakonda- This will be done from the proceeds of. the fund raised as a first step in the Baptist New World Movement, in which the denomination is cooperating with the Interchurch World Movement
 
 a mission field comprising a popula- ton of more than 100000, they have not yet established a hospital for women and have only one dis ? penSary. The immediate programme { which has been adopted calls for two ! fully housed and equipped general hospitals and at least one hospital for women, with a staff of women physicians and nurses
 fF0n AS-rsr- work of the denomination has beer established for more than 100 years and where the general civilization o1 the people is higher than in Assam six hospitals have been established by tSe mission, but their entire staff Consists of four physicians and two nurses, and three were closed during the war for lack of physicians One : is 8 hospital for women at Moul- i Inein and the others are in the viii l 1ages in the hills.
 { The physicians have an unlimited l practice They are able to give at tenticn to only about 10, ,OOO people 2 year, however, and although the Brit. ish Government has made fairly sat, iSfaStory provision for the cities an6 centres of population, there is 5 marked lack of medical service in tn, < hill villages.
 programme in this field calls for tn E sending of four new physicians a once, the furnishing of additiona E equipment for five out of the six hos 5 pitfalls, the development of a trainin school for nurses in connection wit 3 the women's hospital at Moulmei { and the furnishing of a hospital an staff for the new mission field a ! Kentung.