Medicine: Flu Campaign

U.S. doctors were on the alert against flu. It had struck promptly after World War I, killing 500,000 in the U.S. within four months, and another postwar epidemic may be due. But there will be no such toll as last time: a new Army-tested vaccine (TIME, April 3, 1944) is now available to civilians.

The Army inoculated some 7,000,000 G.I.s, found in large-scale tests that the vaccine gave protection in three cases out of four. Last week the first mass civilian inoculation began at Yale University. The University health office, anticipating an epidemic of Type A influenza, planned to vaccinate most of its 10,000 students, faculty and employes (cost per shot: $1).

Developed by Dr. Thomas Francis Jr. at the University of Michigan, the vaccine is made by growing influenza virus in fertile hens’ eggs, then killing the virus. The dead virus, injected under the skin, creates protective antibodies. A single small injection (one cubic centimeter) usually gives a year’s immunity against the two major types of flu, A and B. But it is strictly a preventive. Inoculation does not help after exposure to the disease.