Influenza

No panic resulted from the epidemic of mild influenza which for three weeks has spread eastward from California across the continent. Although more than 40,000 people were officially reported sick with the disease and another 200,000 estimated so, the deaths were few. This epidemic has revealed no such virulence as that of 1918. Nonetheless, it was a wise and (with Christmas holidays so near) a convenient move for scores of schools and colleges to close classes last week. Sensible people followed medical advice--to avoid crowds and ill-ventilated places, to exercise well in the open air and sunlight, to eat well, to take to bed at the first signs of malaise. And statisticians were left to calculate the enormous resultant loss in productive power.