INFLUENZA.
Preventive treatment in the presence of a great pandemic is imprac ticable; all the individuals in the affected zone being apparently en veloped in an ocean of the germs, ordinary isolation measures are useless. In sporadic cases this is different, and the aged, the feeble and the dis eased should be kept away from any patient suffering from even a mild attack of influenza; full doses of Quinine and Eucalyptus are believed to afford some protection. A point in prophylaxis of vital importance, and one usually overlooked, is the necessity for the rigid isolation of an influenza] patient who is suffering from the pneumonic complication. Early in the great epidemic of 1890 the writer observed the highly con tagious nature of the influenzal pneumonia, and witnessed many instances where a pneumonic case infected a number of convalescing patients who had escaped lung complication.
When the first symptoms of influenza show themselves the patient should be immediately ordered to take to his bed; there are few diseased conditions in which the mortality is so notably influenced by rest and protection from exposure. The bronchial surface is left in such a recep tive condition that any change of temperature in the surrounding atmo sphere is liable to lead to serious infection from other micro-organisms, against which the healthy patient is usually immune. By compelling the victim of influenza to remain in his room for at least a week the complications of the disease are largely prevented. His strength should be maintained from the onset by judicious feeding with milk, soups and other liquid nutritious articles of diet.
The intense headache and pains in the back and limbs, even when very little fever is present, should be relieved by Antipyrine (5 grs.) administered at the beginning of the attack, and half this quantity given every 3 hours generally affords very speedy relief. The action of the drug upon the skin hastens the elimination of the poison and cuts short the course of the affection. It appears also to neutralise the toxin, and it should be combined with 2-gr. doses of Citrate of Caffeine.
Quinine is stated by Yeo to be the best of all drugs in influenza; he believes it to be really an antitoxin, and he recommends from i to 3 grs. dissolved with zo grs. citric acid to be taken every 3 or 4 hours in an alkaline mixture of Carbonate of Ammonia and Bicarbonate of Potassium. This treatment, he states, prevents complications and sequeht, but the writer believes the action of Antipyrine to be more reliable, and it is principles. The best routine agent in these cases is the administration of small doses of Antipyrinc in combination with Salicylates to promote elimination and to counteract the influence of the toxins lingering in the blood and tissues. The anosmia yields in time to Strychnine hypo dermically, and long-continued profuse sweating should be dealt with by the same drug.
Insomnia is often a troublesome sequela, which should be treated not by opiates, but by Trional, Sulphonal, Paraldehyde or Verona].