[Detroit (Mich.) News]

Our friends the Christian Scientists must be enjoying the humor of the influenza situation. They find first of all the medical profession in disagreement as to what the infection exactly is, and they find the public health experts in disagreements as to what the treatment exactly should be. But most interesting of all, they find all parties agreed that the very worst epidemic that can occur is an epidemic of fear. Fear killed more than the plague, a romancer first told the world, and modern medicine has confirmed the statement. Fear, which is mental panic, is a pathological condition. Modern medicine measures the effect of anger, fear, anxiety, or any form of mental distress upon the digestion and circulation. Calmness of mind, a reassured mood, a serenely hopeful outlook, these are positively therapeutic, modern medicine proves. The emotions of joy, contentment, assuredness (which is faith), are physically upbuilding in their effects and throw up almost impenetrable barriers against gross physical infection.

All these things—so short a time ago the most hazardous of innovations!—are now blazoned on the front pages of every newspaper and indorsed by the best names in the medical world. The "absent treatment" Detroit is receiving at this moment; the "mind cure" that is being used to prevent panic seizing our thought; the "faith" that is being urged upon us, faith in common sense, in the naturalness of health, in the alliance of physical nature with us in the struggle against disease,—faith in the right trend of nature everywhere, which in its ultimate statement is faith in God—these are really wonderful developments to grow out of an attack of influenza.

If you keep clean and confident—that is the prescription given the city. And this is the fulfilling of the law; for cleanliness fulfills the law of the physical, and faith the law of the spiritual. But, note: it is the masters of materia medica who are most insistent upon this. Truly all those sects and individuals who have insisted upon the supremacy of mind and spirit above things material must be amazed and perhaps gratified by the sudden and widespread evangelism in at least the lower reaches of their doctrines which the authorities have undertaken.

[New York (N. Y.) Times]

"My purpose in doing it all in this way, without issuing general closing orders and making a public flurry over the situation, was to keep down the danger of panic," Doctor Copeland went on to explain. "I felt that one of my prime duties was to keep this city from going mad on the subject of influenza. My aim was to prevent panic, hysteria, mental disturbance, and thus to protect the public from the condition of mind that in itself predisposes to physical ills. I attempted to maintain the morale of New York city. I wanted people to be able to go about their business without constant fear and a hysterical sense of calamity."

[San Francisco (Cal.) Bulletin]

It is safe to assume that at least three fourths of the persons who are reported to have died from influenza in San Francisco during the present epidemic were frightened to death. As a rule they contracted colds, and, with the plague in view, became terribly alarmed, thus aggravating the effect of a slight malady so that it quickly became a fatal one. Mental suggestion, if we but fully understood it, probably would be found to be the chief agency of death in many cases that occur in what are known as normal times and conditions. In seasons of pestilence, like the present, a large percentage of deaths is due to that malign mental condition, which so fills and compels the imagination that little else is thought of day or night save what is fancied to be the constant menace of a terrible malady.

[Chicago (Ill.) Tribune]

Dr. Geoge E. Vincent, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, in making a plea for "Team Work in Public Health," charged that the work of the fifty-seven health societies of the United States is to a large degree unsuccessful because "too much time is spent in the collection of funds and preaching about accomplishments," thereby "leaving no time for scientific investigation."

"It is certain that so long as the voluntary agencies of public health of the country persist in the present policy of isolation and rivalry, seeing their specialties out of focus, unconsciously misleading the public, hampering the development of unbiased research, preventing the consistent and careful education of the people," said Doctor Vincent, "they will be in no position to bring to bear upon the Federal Government pressure for the creation of a Federal department of health with a secretary in the President's cabinet."

[Longmont (Colo.) Ledger]

The anonymous communication in the Daily Call, in answer to our suggestion that our churches open for service, in which we implied that faith or lack of faith has something to do with our illness, suggests that the writer has no faith, does not believe in prayer when it conflicts with natural law, and believes that the laws of God are inexorable. He evidently does not believe that mind influences matter, or that our spiritual life has something to do with our bodily health.

The editor of this paper is not a Christian Scientist as this body of Christian people believe; but we do believe that the well ventilated, light, and cheery rooms of our churches, and the spiritual, helpful sermons that are preached from the various pulpits of the churches, while they will not always prevent the action of natural law, the faith and hope in what we term the higher things of life will do much to prevent the taking of the flu or any other disease.

[Santa Barbara (Cal.) News]

Queer, is it not, that germs that cannot be seen with the finest microscope, and cannot be measured with the finest measurement, are so disposed. They live in street cars and omnibuses, and not in steam cars or sidewalks. They thrive in barber shops and not in dentists' offices. They inhabit churches and theaters alike, but not restaurants nor cafeterias. Queer, is it not, that these little bugs, so very little that they cannot be detected with the microscope, and that they can go through cement and even glazed dishes, are yet so large that they can be held back by the thin meshes of a handkerchief, or the thin stuff that goes into a mask?

[Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colo.]

While every one is anxious to do whatever may help to stop the spread of the flu, there are many who believe that the compulsory wearing of masks is apt to do more harm than good. To begin with, compelling thousands of people to wear masks lays undue emphasis upon disease in general and the flu in particular. It tends to lower the morale of the community. It increases the fear of disease, and it is a fact that fear disturbs the normal functioning of the organs of the body, thus lowering the resistance of the body in disease.