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Some background on the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic:




The Spanish Flu Pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza Pandemic, the 1918 Flu Epidemic and La Grippe, was an unusually severe and deadly strain of avian influenza that killed some 25 million to 50 million people worldwide in 1918 and 1919. It is thought to have been one of the most deadly pandemics so far in human history. It was caused by the H1N1 type of flu virus.
The Allies of World War I frequently called it the "Spanish Flu." This was mainly because the pandemic received greater press attention in Spain than in the rest of the world, because Spain was not involved in the war and there was no wartime censorship. Spain did have one of the worst early outbreaks of the disease, with some 8 million people infected in May 1918. It was also known as "only the flu" or "the grippe" by public health officials seeking to prevent panic.

More soldiers of the United States died from the Spanish flu during World War I than from the war itself.


Many infections with similar but milder symptoms were recorded in the spring of 1918, with sore throat, headaches, dizziness, and loss of appetite. It has been proposed that the earliest known cases were in Haskell County, Kansas, in January 1918. Several local men were inducted into the army at Fort Riley, Kansas, where on March 4, 1918, company cook Albert Gitchell reported to the infirmary with a temperature of 103?F (39.5?C). He was soon followed by Corporal Lee Drake and Sergeant Adolph Hurby. Within two days 522 men at the camp had reported sick. In the summer, infections became much more severe. In August 1918 the more deadly version broke out simultaneously in three disparate locations ? Brest, France; Boston, Massachusetts; and Freetown, Sierra Leone. Many of the worst outbreaks of the "Flu" were among soldiers, both at the front lines and in camps far away which soon spread into civilian populations. Severe outbreaks often required hospitalization and even with the best of care often killed one-third of those infected.

The strain was unusual in commonly killing many young and healthy victims, as opposed to more common influenzas which caused the bulk of their mortality among newborns and the old and infirm. People without symptoms could be struck suddenly and be rendered too feeble to walk within hours; many would die the next day. Symptoms included a blue tint to the face and coughing up blood caused by severe obstruction of the lungs. In further stages, the virus caused an uncontrollable haemorrhaging that filled the lungs, and patients would drown in their own body fluids.

Mortality in the fast-progressing cases was primarily from pneumonia, by virus-induced consolidation. Slower progressing cases featured secondary bacterial pneumonias while some suspect neural involvement led to psychiatric disorders in a minority of cases. Some deaths resulted from malnourishment and even animal attacks in overwhelmed communities.

Global mortality rate from the influenza was estimated at 2.5%?5% of the population, with some 20% of the world population suffering from the disease to some extent. The disease spread across the world killing twenty-five million in the course of six months; some estimates put the total of those killed worldwide at over twice that number, possibly as high as 100 million. An estimated 17 million died in India alone, with a mortality rate of about 5% of the population. In the Indian Army, almost 22% of troops who caught the disease died of it. About 28% of the population of the U.S. suffered from the disease, and some 500,000?675,000 died from it. Some 200,000 were killed in Britain and more than 400,000 in France. The death rate was especially high in indigenous peoples where some entire villages perished in Alaska and southern Africa. Fourteen percent of the population of the Fiji Islands died in a period of only two weeks while 22% of the population of Western Samoa died.

Many cities, states, and countries enforced restrictions on public gatherings and travel to try to stay the epidemic. In many places theaters, dance halls, churches and other public gathering places were shut down for over a year. Quarantines were enforced with little success. Some communities placed armed guards at the borders and turned back or quarantined any travellers. One U.S. town even outlawed shaking hands.

Even in areas where morbidity was low, those incapacitated by the illness were often so numerous as to bring much of everyday life to a stop. Some communities closed all stores or required customers not to enter the store but place their orders outside the store for filling. There were many reports of places with no health care workers to tend the sick because of their own ill health and no able bodied grave diggers to inter the dead. Mass graves were dug by steam shovel and bodies buried without coffins in many places.