Influenza: A Survey of the Last 50 Years in the Light of Modern Work on the Virus of Epidemic Influenza

From Australia comes this review of information regarding influenza accumulated during the last fifty years. The monograph is supplemented by a good bibliography, well selected to cover the important available literature. The book is also up to date in recognizing the recent research of Horsfall and Lennette. The authors recognize the possibility that living virus used in inoculation against influenza might actually reach the lung and set up the specific disease. The section on bacterial and virus vaccines states in a brief paragraph the basis of the use of virus products. It says "It is clearly unjustified, however, to try out a method, however convenient its practical application, unless preliminary work shows (1) that it has a high probability of proving effective and (2) that the risk involved in its application is small enough relative to that presented by the pandemic to allow public opinion to accept the procedure. Neither