HARVARD HELPS IN FLU CURE WITH SNEEZING EXPERIMENTS

Harvard scientists played an important role in the long process of discovering the causes of influenza, according to an article by J. D. Ratcliff in the current issue of Collier's.

"Up at Harvard," the article states, "other men wanted to check on the belief that flu is spread by sneezing. So they built a sneezing machine--a small, glass-enclosed cage with an atomizing nozzle stuck in one side. Ferrets in the cage got flu after a couple of blasts of the atomizer. Further work with high-speed cameras and other equipment indicated that droplets are expelled from the mouth of a sneezer at the rate of 100 miles per hour; and that flu microbes in the droplets float in the air, well and happy, for as long as half an hour!"