Dear Mr. T. Rat, Check out Wikipedia's entry for Influenza. It addresses some of your questions. As to Ms. Acrey's salt water treatment, my dad taught us to snort up warm salt water to clear sinusitus, it works. Recently I saw, (don't remember where), an article recommending this practice. I think they called it a nasal douche, I'll just stick with calling it snorting salt water...Joseph Martin.