From the Press [THE INQUIRER, PHILADELPHIA, PA]            From an editorial which appeared in these columns recently we reprint this extract: "Panic is the worst thing that can happen to an individual or a community. Panic is exaggerated fear, and fear is the most deadly word in any language. The fear of influenza is creating a panic, an unreasonable panic that will be promoted, we suspect, by the drastic commands of the authorities. Let a person become excited over the daily reports of new cases; let him brood over them; let him shake his head in dismay and with every little ache or pain that may be harmless in itself give himself over to dismal imaginings, and he is providing a fertile field for attack. His mind fears it, becomes receptive to it, invites it."          We wish that we could find space for all of the commendations that the editorial in question has called forth. Not all medical men have been caught up in the panic by any means. A physician of North Logan Square, Dr. Thomas E. Eldridge, is convinced that if the editorial could be placed in the hands of every afflicted one, "it would do more to stop the spread and ravages of the epidemic than all the treatments and medicine combined." Says he: "Within the last ten days I have seen scores of women and many men who were suffering from influenza fear and not a symptom of the real disease, and I know many other physicians who have similar experiences."          Dr. John W. Croskey is the president of the West Philadelphia Medical Association. He, with various other physicians of that section, has started an anti-scare campaign. In a newspaper interveiw he is reported to have said that "the public should be educated to the fact that the disease is not as deadly as many believe it to be." He estimates that, taking into account all of the unreported cases, the death rate is only about one half of one percent. But here is the main point that he makes: "Terror is a big ally of the influenza, and if the public state of mind can be steered out of the channel of fright a long, long step will have been taken to conquer the epidemic."          There is no doubt in the world that the mind is the seat of most if not all ills. Let the mind take up a dismal thought of disease in any form and it at once offers a fertile field for the cultivation of disease. No intelligent person, medical man or nonprofessional, will hazard a denial of that fact. If that is true, the reverse also must be true, that the mind that stolidly refuses to entertain the thought of disease, that rejects fear, that repels panicky conditions, is far better prepared to ward off disease — the influenza, for instance — than the mind that succumbs to forebodings of disaster.          There is need in this city, not to shut up well ventilated churches, not to turn the ordinary ways of life topsy-turvy, but to impress upon the individual citizen the desirability of keeping a clean mind and to live a clean life, which he should do in any event, influenza or no influenza. Let the individual be cautioned to be sensible; to look upon the influenza as an incident which will be removed far quicker if he is sensible than will be the case if he gives himself over to abject fear. Men and women who stop on street corners and make the influenza the chief topic of conversation are issuing direct invitations to it to seize upon them.          And, above all, repudiate fear. Cast it out of the mind. Refuse to become panic-stricken. The chances are ninety-nine in one hundred that the man or woman who does this will be passed by, while the fearful and the panicky will be the victims.   "From the Press" [The Inquirer, Philadelphia, PA] Christian Science Sentinel, November 23, 1918

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