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by - October 5, 2007 - 1:29 PM
SPANISH INFLUENZA
• The deadliest epidemic in history, the Spanish flu killed at least 50 million people — and maybe twice that many — surpassing even the plague.
• The flu brought the country to its knees in 1918 and 1919. In New York City, 851 people died in one day. Public gatherings were cancelled nationwide. When people did go out, they wore very chic gauze masks.
• Though it is still called Spanish flu, many epidemiologists now think the virus originated in rural Kansas.
• Many folks didn’t take the epidemic seriously because it was a flu epidemic. Everybody’s gotten the flu, right? But this was an extraordinarily violent flu. Its victims turned blue, coughed so hard they pulled muscles, and bled from the nose and ears.
• It took a while for the average Joe or Jane to realize was happening. Politicians focused on World War I weren’t about to let a little flu distract the country. They downplayed the danger, censured newspaper reports, and crammed soldiers into barracks where the flu raged, according to John Barry’s The Great Influenza. American officials also played the blame game: The Germans started flu, they said.
• Searching for clues why this particular flu was so deadly, scientists have taken tissue from the bodies of frozen flu victims found in the Arctic.
• On the bright side, the flu walloped the German army, helping us win the war. It also spurred research on pneumonia (a secondary infection that many flu victims caught), which led to the discovery of DNA.
Other Infamous Epidemics We Hope We Never See: yellow fever, cholera, plague and syphilis. Chris Weber will be back with more Weird Science later this month. Give him a round of applause.
Comments (6)
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The title of this post says “Yellow Fever” yet the content is about the flu epidemic. And lately there has been an advertising campaign warning us to be prepared for the next pandemic. We’re due.
posted by KJ on 10-5-2007 at 1:38 pm
I posted this on Chris’ behalf. First I posted it as me (not Chris). Then I forgot the Weird Science banner. Then I forgot to change the title from Yellow Fever.
The game is getting away from me. I need a time-out.
posted by Jason on 10-5-2007 at 1:44 pm
A Fort Funston in Kansas was attributed as the original outbreak site for the Spanish Influenza in the link to which your article refers. There never has been such a fort in Kansas. That fort is actually located in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California.
posted by Debi on 10-5-2007 at 6:11 pm
lol. i was reading that book (the great influenza) when i caught a particularly nasty fly one year. i was feeling miserable and i went to the doctor to find out the problem, and i brought the book to read while i waited, and she laughed when she saw the book.
she says “book about the flu huh? funny, that’s what you have!”
that didn’t make me feel any better. lol
posted by Sue on 10-5-2007 at 10:17 pm
Careful of those nasty flies!
I haven’t read that one yet, althouugh I have a respectable little library of disease. I highly recommend “The Fever Trail” all about malaria.
BTW were news reports censured or censored?
posted by Bassman on 10-6-2007 at 7:50 am
Funston certainly was in Kansas. It was located at the confluence of the Smoky Hill and Republican Rivers, where they become the Kansas River. Part of the confusion may be because it was more commonly called “Camp Funston,” and was located within the Army’s Fort Riley.
For confirmation, see the Army website below or Barry’s The Great Influenza pages 95-97.
http://www.riley.army.mil/OurPost/History.aspx
posted by Chris Weber on 10-7-2007 at 9:52 am