Influenza epidemic in Dunedin

IT seems to be reasonably clear that influenza has become an epidemic in Dunedin. Fortunately the type of the disease in this portion of New Zealand is, as was indeed to be anticipated, less serious than that by which northern provincial districts have been and are being visited. Nevertheless it has already been attended by a certain amount of mortality, and it is perfectly obvious that it is sufficiently severe to render it highly important that there should be no neglect of precautions on the part of the community. It is

impossible, we fear, to absolve the Public Health Department from all blame in connection with the spreading of the disease throughout the dominion. It can hardly be a mere coincidence that the disease obtained a footing in New Zealand at the time of the arrival of the mail steamer Niagara, with a considerable number of cases on board, from Vancouver last month, and that it was first reported in Auckland, the port of call in New Zealand for that steamer.

The Public Health Department was apparently not prepared for the introduction of the disease into the dominion, though it should have been warned by reports from other countries of the possibility of it. At all events its earliest efforts to cope with the malady were marked by feebleness and ineptness, the effect of which has since been to throw upon its officials a serious burden of responsibility. Even the campaign of publicity which the department has undertaken, with the object of

instructing the public in the measures that should be adopted for preventing the spread of the disease was needlessly delayed . . .