Flu Fear

History and legend are filled with plagues, most horrific of which was the Black Death which scourged Europe in the middle of the Fifteenth Century. When Boccaccio's characters fled Florence in 1438 and spent their exile telling the stories of the Decameron, they thus escaped a swift, nauseous blight which, so the tales run, made dark convulsions of men's faces, twisted tortures of their bodies.

No such macabre romancing is possible with influenza epidemics. They are extensive, exasperating to the medical profession, sometimes desolating. But even when their death toll is enormous they make no lurid history. Influenza is too subtle a disease to lend itself to ghastly poetics.

In the past weeks nationwide sniffling, coughing and dull fevers have heralded the spread of influenza. Unlike the famed epidemic of 1918, the disease spread from west to east.* Last week the U. S. Public Health Service in Washington estimated that 700,000 persons had the disease, with a possible peak of 3,000,000 cases. Kansas was dangerously affected. The northeastern states seemed exempt.

The Public Health Service saw no cause for panicky fears. In 1918 about 450,000 persons died of influenza. Last week 43 out of 78 principal cities reported the comparatively small death total of 379. Everywhere the disease was mild, not virulent. The mortality rate for influenza is low. Some specialists maintain that death never occurs unless there are complications. The Public Health Service urged sleep, food, exercise, avoidance of crowds.

They could do little else. The influenza bacillus has never been isolated. Hence a specific cure or preventative has yet to be developed. But the nostrum men, flourishing in a medicinal half-world, made the most of last week's threat of epidemic. To the newspapers they went with their cleverly evasive advertisements to allure the flu-fearful. Such an advertisement was that for Japanese Oil (EN-AR-CO), which under the arousing headline FLU EPIDEMIC described the oil's use for head colds, sore throats, chest colds. Perhaps even more persuasive were advertisements for Turpo, Nozol, Harrison's Heart O'Orange, Calotabs, Mu-Sol-Dent, Bulgarian Herb Tea.

* Pandemics (worldwide epidemics) generally move westward. The U. S. influenza epidemic in 1918 was part of a pandemic, supposedly having its origin in Spain.