Influenza, More

Influenza showed a few signs of waning last week in the eastern U.S. (e.g., New York City); it still waxed in certain sections of the Midwest and West (e.g., Detroit, Indianapolis, Los Angeles). About 1,000.000 people were sick, according to the A.P., but Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the A.M.A., upped the estimate to at least ten per cent of the population. A board of Philadelphia doctors averred that the virus causing this year's mild flu was not a dangerous one; they hedged by adding that this virus might pave the way for more dangerous germs six weeks hence. The Naval Research Laboratory at the University of California (TIME, July 26) reported that not one of 26 preparations they tried could prevent a mouse from getting flu. Other notes on the flu:

> Britain's epidemic was said to be abating somewhat, though 1,148 deaths were reported for the week ending Dec. 11. Some railways were still running on reduced schedules owing to the shortage of workers. A doctor in Parliament declared that, contrary to the lay impression, alcohol is not good medicine for the disease, and therefore no more grain need be allocated to whiskey production on flu's account.

> In Germany they call flu Kellergrippe. One British expert thinks it got there by a roundabout plane ride from Britain to the U.S. to South America to Lisbon to Ber lin. He did not explain why the infection could not have gone directly from London, by parachuting flyer, to the Continent. Flu was reported by Swedish papers to have killed 2,000 Berliners last week.

> In northern Italy 32,000 cases of flu were reported.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.