FLU IN FOCUS

WINTER is just around the corner, and you know what that means: flu, colds, spluttering, sneezing and mucus, lots of mucus.

Flu (the microbial world's version of leprosy) is taken so seriously around here that doctors inject you with it to prevent you from becoming as sick as a hound. The injection itself will make you as sick as a hound, but you won't get the flu.

Our doctor runs a practice in the heart of Newtown, but we are not allowed to name him for moral reasons. The main one being that there is only so much money you can cram into one bank account without it becoming indecently overcrowded in there and it would be embarrassing if everybody in town knew how ridiculously rich you were (only joking Doc).

So they go by pseudonyms like Dr Wright. But that one's already taken . . . and so's Dr Death (only joking again, Doc) . . . so we'll call our family medicator Dr Dinosaur. We'll call him that not because of his age or appearance, but because of the way he explained what causes the flu.

It is caused by millions of microscopic viruses which, under a microscope, look just like itsy-bitsy dinosaurs. Some have claws, some have spikes and others have long tails which ``flagellate''. Fancy that!

Inside our sinuses these little critters build colonies attached to our nasal hairs (the scientific term for this is ``snot''), from which they attack. They rip and tear and cavort about, which causes us to feel as sick as all get-out and to sneeze repeatedly in an effort to dislodge them.

By the way, scientists have discovered that when you sneeze, tiny particles - including miniature dinosaurs - come hurtling out of your nostrils at speeds exceeding 600km/hr. (So it is pointless trying to duck when one of your workmates starts ah-tishu-ing all over the place).

Colds and flus have plagued humanity for eons, but until recently, nobody knew what to do. According to Dr Dinosaur, streptococcus pyogenes (common name: ``inflammation-causing nano-stegosaurus'') and staphylococcus aureus (``phlegm-generating micro-tyrannosaurus'') were two particularly nasty little bugs which reproduced so rapidly that there were soon enough cells to clump themselves into life-forms known as lawyers and parking police.

Then, in 1928, Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist at London's St Mary's Hospital, discovered that by stuffing mouldy oranges into patients' mouths, most of these little dinocrobes died or fled, leaving the patients nauseated to the point of vomiting blood for weeks - but not coughing and sneezing. The era of antibiotics had arrived.

We had identified how bacteria and viruses operate, and, although we couldn't entirely vanquish them, we continued to refine our research until we stumbled upon vaccinations, a technical term for experimentally injecting people with substances like Vegemite and Listerene in order to protect them from viruses and bacteria - even if it killed them.

Years of pain-staking research followed (PAIN-staking for the subjects, not the researchers . . . that's where we got the medical word staph, which is actually a corruption of the workplace term STAFF).

Scientists eventually discovered that by injecting people with a diluted dose of flu, their symptoms

would completely disappear after four or five days. Whereas, without a flu shot, the illness could linger for anything up to three, or even four, days.

Dr Dinosaur makes no bones about the fact that he is pro-vaccination. He also recommends cold and flu medications which are available from companies like Cumberland Newspapers or even over-the-counter. You know the ones, encased in safety packaging so microbe-resistant, you have to spear them with a kitchen knife to prise them open. Some people have severed limbs trying to find a way into these products.

But the best tactic, he says, is to avoid getting infected altogether. In the workplace there is a

foolproof method of avoiding cross-infection from ailing colleagues.

Simply clamp your eyes and mouth shut, stuff wads of scrunched-up paper in your nose and ears - and you'll live happily ever arf-ah-arrgh-TISH-u.