press to the forehead, and a light sponge. Only such medicine should be given as is prescribed by the doctor. It is foolish to ask the druggist to prescribe and may be dangerous to take the so-called "safe, sure, and harmless" remedies advertised by patent-medicine manufacturers.

If the patient is so situated that he can be attended only by some one who must also look after others in the family, it is advisable that such attendant wear a wrapper, apron, or gown over the ordinary house clothes while in the sick room, and slip this off when leaving to look after the others.

Nurses and attendants will do well to guard against breathing in dangerous disease germs by wearing a simple fold of gauze or mask while near the patient.

Will a person who has had influenza before catch the disease again?

It is well know that an attack of measles or scarlet fever or smallpox usually protects a person against another attack of the same disease. This appears not to be true of "Spanish influenza." According to newspaper reports the King of Spain suffered an attack of influenza during the epidemic thirty years ago, and was again, stricken during the recent outbreak in Spain.

How can one guard against influenza?

In guarding against disease of all kinds, it is important that the body

be kept strong and able to fight off disease germs. This can be done by having a proper proportion of work, play, and rest, by keeping the body well clothed, and by eating sufficient, wholesome, and properly selected food. In connection with diet, it is well to remember that milk is one of the best all-round foods obtainable for adults as well as children. So far as a disease like influenza is concerned, health authorities everywhere recognize the very close relation between its spread and overcrowded homes. While it is not always possible. especially in times like the present, to avoid such overcrowding, people should consider the health danger and make every effort to reduce the home overcrowding to a minimum. The value of fresh air through open windows can not be over-emphasized.

Where crowding is unavoidable, as in street cars, care should be taken to keep the face so turned as not to inhale directly the air breathed out by another person.

It is especially important to beware of the person who coughs or sneezes without covering his mouth and nose. It also follows that one should keep out of crowds and stuffy places as much as possible, keep homes, offices, and workshops well aired, spend some time out of doors each day, walk to work if at all practicable-in short make every possible effort to breathe as much pure air as possible.

"Cover up each cough and sneeze, If you don't you'll spread disease."

E

PIDEMICS of influenza, commonly known as "grip," such as have broken out in many sections of the United States in recent weeks and have prevailed in Europe for a year or more past, are by no means rare in medical history. While the name of "Spanish grip" has been popularly applied to the disease now prevalent, it is deemed probable that the malady is the same "influenza" or "grip" which has appeared in epidemic form before. The disease differs from the familiar type of "grip" in its greater virulence.

The present outbreak has not yet duplicated the conditions which prevailed in the pandemic, or world-wide outbreak, in 1889 and 1890. In that outbreak scarcely a spot on the globe escaped the disease and the cases were numbered in millions, estimates placing the average number of persons affected at forty percent of the population.

The pandemic of 1889 and 1890 appears to have taken its rise in Asiatic Russia (there are a few indications that it may have spread to that locality from China), and from there to have moved swiftly westward until it had covered the entire globe in a few months. In rapidity of progress it exceeded epidemics of any other known disease. This swiftness, in fact, led to serious doubts among many medical men of the day that contagion was responsible for the spread, their belief being that the progress was swifter than human travel. The erroneous nature of this belief, however, was estab

lished, and it was found that the pandemic in its progress had followed the main lines of human communication. The contagious and infectious nature of influenza is therefore established today.

The fatality rate of influenza is not high, so far as deaths directly due to the disease are concerned, but there has been notable in nearly every epidemic an accompanying increase in deaths from pneumonia, tuberculosis and other diseases of the respiratory organs, indicating that influenza often renders the individual dangerously susceptible to such infections.

Despite the low death rate, however, an epidemic of influenza is a serious matter for a community. It has a paralyzing effect on business and industry, by reason of the large numbers of persons affected.

An epidemic of influenza ordinarily lasts from four to six weeks, reaching its height at the middle of that period. Epidemics appear to begin most often in winter and least often in summer. Once begun, however, an outbreak runs its course equally through all seasons, the 1889-90 pandemic having reached its highest proportions in the summer in many of the countries affected.

In the United States registration area influenza, during the years 1911 to 1915, caused from six to ten thousand deaths annually, besides the probable heavy total indirectly attributable to the disease. The deaths are fewest in the summer months, the rate rising rapidly through the fall to reach its highest point in late winter or spring.