Need for elaborate arrangements to enable analysis to be made during influenza epidemies is emphasised in a report issued by the Medical Research Council. After detailed analysis of a number' of cases in the 1936-37 epidemic, together with an &ccount of experiments carried out, it is stated that much further work is required on the more severe cases of epidemic influenza, and particularly cases with lung complications, including all the varieties of pneumonia.
The evidence from this one outbreak is valuable and suggestive, the. report continues, but not extensive enough to justify dogmatic statements. Anaiysis of complicated cases in man will not be easy, for the means available for identification of the virus are clumsy and costly, and it is impossible to keep' clinical, bac-being 2nd fully equi for: th study of an epidemic which is. erratic in its appearance, so cious in attack and lasts for such 4 short period in any one legality. 4
Difficulties of Study It is also exceedingly difficult arrange that clinicians, bacteria gis and, pathologists shall be set fi from' routine duties whenever influenza outbreak occurs and allowed to devote all their energy to the study of the epidemic diso Yet without some such labor arrangement progress in the analys of complicated cases of influenza' man is bound to be slow.
The possibility or otherwise successful protective vaccination man has not been tested Difficulty-is caused by the varieties the influenza virus. Although all th strains have some common fi and the differences, so|far as pres information is available, are not great as is the case with some viruses, they. may be large en to influence very unfavourably vaccination experiment.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.