To commence then at the initial stage, let us bring upon the scene one of the greatest chemists of the age:  Justus von Liebig, the discoverer of “The Law of the Minimum,” which is this:  That of the sixteen known constituents of the blood essential to the healthy growth and maintenance of the organs and tissues of the body, the absence of any proportional ingredient, however small, will cause degeneration in the organism and interfere with the proper functioning of one or more of the activities concerned.

Upon this Law is based the attested, dominant fact that all our mental and physical activities—­powers of thinking, feeling, motion and every action, including the reproduction of species are equally dependent upon our blood—­and our blood, in turn, depends upon proper nutrition. The ancient aphorism:  “Man is as man eats,” is therefore true in theory and in fact.

Human diet and human life being thus closely allied, it becomes a consideration of the first magnitude to see that all food contains in well balanced degree a correct proportion of the sixteen essentials:  carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, iron, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, potassium, sodium, magnesium, calcium, manganese, fluorine, silicon and iodine.

Amongst the chemical salts of such scientific nutrition may, or may not, be found the famous “Vitamines,” long sought of science; but what they certainly do supply is the electro-magnetic energy, the impulse of growth and vital function, the secret of bactericide blood and its power of circulation.

It is the magnetic iron in the blood which promotes nerve function in both the brain and the intestinal tract, producing on the one hand intellectual activity and on the other, breathing digestion and excretion.  Similar causal action in corelation to the integral elements of food prevails throughout the organs of the body, demonstrating the vital importance of the quality of our daily food for the renewal of tissue and the maintenance of healthy metabolism.

In an attempt to define the primary cause of Influenza, Prof.  Kuhnemann, a well known authority on practical and differential diagnosis, gives a minute description of its various symptoms, terminating with a weak suggestion that the already discredited bacillus may be regarded as the cause.

This is, in detail, as follows:  “Fever is always present,” Prof.  Kuhnemann says, “but not of any certain type.  At times, after short periods of Apyrexie there is a rise in temperature sometimes swelling of the spleen.  There is no characteristic change in the urine; sometimes Albuminuria.  There is an inclination to perspire freely; consequently Miliaria is often present; also Herpes, less frequently other Exanthema, Petechien.  The mucous membranes are inclined to hemorrhage (Epistaxis, Hematemesis, Menorrhagia, Abortion).

     “Complications and after effects: