The Web site for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contains a pandemic influenza storybook filled with personal reflections from survivors, family members and friends. One of the accounts tells the story of Art McLaughlin, who lived about 25 km east of Chicago during the 1918 flu pandemic in a town where guards were posted on every block to keep people from moving around and transmitting the virus. What distinguishes McLaughlin's story from others, however, is the fact that McLaughlin credits his family's survival of that horrific pandemic to bathing and frequent gargling with a popular antiseptic that can be found in most drugstores today — Listerine.
In fact, McLaughlin was so convinced of the preventive effects of Listerine that he gargled with it every day for the rest of his life. Yes, as odd as it may sound to some, this man gargled as a preventive measure against disease.
Nearly one century after the Spanish flu pandemic took the lives of 50 million to 100 million people, much of the public in certain countries, particularly Japan, is still gargling in an effort to prevent ailments ranging from the common cold to the flu. In fact, in May of this year, Japan's own Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare implemented a national campaign to control the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu by encouraging the public to wash their hands and, yes, to gargle.