Victory over Influenza ?
It will be a scientific triumph of far-reaching importance if the Institute of Medical Research in Capetown can make good the claim made on its behalf by Dr. E. H. Cluver that it has isolated the germ which causes influenza. It is only now and again that this epidemic assumes palpably catastrophic pro. portions, as when it worked havoc in 1918 throughout Europe, and was responsible for more deaths than were caused in battle. But there is no year in which influenza does not prove itself a serious enemy to the human race—though no doubt then are many- ailments which pass for influenza and are not really the genuine thing. It is a scourge which has long demanded just as much attention from scientists as some of the more dreaded diseases, such as cancer and tuberculosis. Indeed, it is the apparently lesser diseases which most of all should be the subject of scientific attention. There could be no greater boon which medical science -could confer on society than the elimination of the common cold which, though it may not often kill, reduces the vitality of vast numbers of the population for days or weeks every year. Its disappearance would increase the annual output of this country by scores of millions of days' work. Dr. Cluver announces that his In.stitute is pre- paring a vaccine which it is hoped will be successfully used against influenza. If he is right the discovery will be some- thing to set against the carnage of the war.
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