PREVENTIVES OF INFLUENZA?

Are there any Influenza preventives? Serums, of late years have been the chief agents used for preventing and treating the Flu.

As a preventive remedy, the immunity (?) or protection afforded is very brief, and it ceases to be of value in a few weeks.

In Hawaii, the Author has not been greatly impressed with the value of Serums in the treatment of Influenza; the alleged great benefits and cures set forth in Medical papers, and publications of laboratory statistics by manufacturers of the Serums are not obtained here.

Serums after injection are supposed to aggravate all the symptoms of Flu, followed later by a great improvement in the patient’s condition, but this prophecy is not always borne out; hence the increase of the headache, fever and pains in the limbs and aching bones, alarms and frightens the patient of the Asiatic, Hawaiian races and many of the Caucasians.

Amongst cases of Influenza, lying side by side, those treated by simple remedies recovered just as speedily and safely as those who had undergone the Serum treatment, and were attended with much less discomfort.

QUININE. The bi-sulphate of Quinine is one of the best haemal or blood microbicides that we have, and its daily use in times of epidemics of Influenza may prevent the user of it from being attacked. It is more a Preventive in some of the epidemics than in others, the ratio of prevention is 40–60, sometimes more, sometimes less; the remedy is easily taken, and in small doses has no drawbacks; it is best so administered; it is cheap and in the coated tablet form palatable, convenient; any person can take it and pursue his usual avocation.

After forty years of practice as a physician, the Author feels convinced of the value of Quinine; he learned its value in western Europe, even if the headache of Flu is very severe small trial doses may be given, as the Author knows from personal experience it is helpful; in a later stage of the disease, with excessive sweats, cold clammy skin and aching bones, all due to cadaveric bacilli circulating in the blood, give Quinine, and your patient or patients will soon respond to its beneficial effects, their condition will improve, and they will thank you and ask for the medicine.

Should small doses upset the stomach, in very susceptible persons, then it may be given by hypodermic injection, using the more soluble salts of QUININE, the Lactate a white powder soluble in 1 to 5 of water, or the Acid Hydrochloride of the B P [^[2]]; in the U S P [^[3]] it is the Di-chloride, which is soluble in less than its own weight of water; if small doses of Quinine cause headache and ringing in the ears in a well person than the remedy is unsuitable and should not be taken, for it will not prevent an attack of the Flu in that person.

[2]. British Pharmacopeia.

[3]. U. S. A. Pharmacopeia.

Professor Dittmar Finkler, M.D., of the university of Bonn, Rhenish Prussia, in his work on Influenza, cites the experiments carried out by Dr. Graser, Medical Army Corps, on duty at the cavalry barracks at Bonn, where five squadrons of German cavalry were quartered during an Epidemic of Flu; one of the squadrons, complement of men, was given daily rations of Quinine for several weeks during the prevalence of the epidemic, the other four squadrons received no Quinine; the results are here set forth:

Squadron	Complement	“Flu” Cases	Quinine

First	135	22	None
Second	135	4	0.5 gm. daily
Third	135	19	None
Fourth	135	42	None
Fifth	135	32	None

It is reasonable to assume, that the food or pabulum of the bacillus of Influenza is poisoned by Quinine entering the blood, hence the microbe will avoid by instinct any person whose blood contains quinine in solution; if the bacillus has gained access to the system it is speedily destroyed, and becomes cadaveric as soon as it enters the zone of the quinine barrage.

Are there Hours of the day when the System is more susceptible to Invasion by the Bacillus Influenzae?

To determine this question requires careful study, time, a great deal of patient and tedious work and perseverance; yet it is possible to gain some information on this phase of the “Flu.”

At intervals, during the past twenty-one years, from more than 1000 cases of Influenza in adults, the Author has managed to collect 132 cases; wherein, it was possible to check and verify with some degree of accuracy, the time of contact with a known source of Flu; no subsequent contact being had with any other known source of that disease.

Material evidence was collected from isolated plantation camps, sparsely inhabited villages, and the suburbs of Honolulu at such times as there was no epidemic of Flu. A record of cases collected mostly in the autumn and winter months, from October to March, is hereunder set forth:

Hours of Contact	Cases	Incubation	Pneumonia
5 a.m. to 8 a.m.	30	2 to 3 days.	None.
8 a.m. to 6 p.m.	22	2 to 3 days.	None.
6 p.m. to 10 p.m.	80	1 to 5 days.	9

CROWDS in attendance at Social gatherings, Public meetings, Restaurants, Places of amusement; together with lack of pure Air in overheated and unventilated rooms and halls, plus lowered vitality after the day’s work, easily and clearly account for the great excess of cases in the above table, between the hours from 6 to 10 p.m.

Influenza has neither cosmic nor heliacal connections.