“The Spanish Flu” is a 2020 Hourly History book, a series of books that contain the essential information about a subject that can be read in about an hour. This book tells about the unusual conditions of 1918, the beginning of the flu that lasted until 1920 in three outbreaks, each outbreak being slightly different because the virus mutated every year, what is the Spanish flu, that the second wave was the worst plague, the third almost as bad, and about the lasting legacy of the flu. In many ways it was similar to the present Covid-19 pandemic, although a significant difference was that in 1918-1920, neither the medical nor lay people throughout the world knew much about viruses. Strange advice was given to people at that time, such as congregate in houses of worship and pray for the cessation of the flu, the offering of ineffective medicines such as the overuse of aspirins, and the refusal to use black nurses.
It was not until the 1930s that scientists definitively discovered that influenza is a virus and not a bacterium. Bacteria are living organisms with all the components needed to survive. Viruses are not considered living because they need a host cell to survive long term, for energy, and to reproduce. The first vaccines to treat the “common flu,” an illness that also changes every year because viruses mutate, was in the 1940s. We still today do not know why the flu is so dangerous.
There were many plagues in the past. In the fourteenth century, for example, the Black plague killed 200 million people worldwide. In the 1770s a plague killed 100,000; in 1855-1860 more than a million people were killed, so too in 1889-1890, more than a million died. The flu in the 1950s killed a million people, as it did also in 1968. In 2009, the Swine flu affected 500,000 people. Influenza continues to impact the world. Every year, thousands die from it.
Between, January 1918 and December 1920 more people were killed by the Spanish flu than all the people who died during World War I soldiers and civilians, 50 million, about a tenth of the world population of 500 million at that time. The flu struck just prior to the end of World War I (1914-1918) when conditions in the US and world-wide were terrible: weak, hungry, overworked people living in overcrowded conditions. There were lots of movement of people around the world, such as soldiers moving from country to country. There was no concept of mitigation and isolation.
During the plague, cities shut down. Businesses failed. Inflation rocketed. Yet the plague received little mention in the press and it was not studied by historians and other scholars. The governments of the world tried to downplay the outbreak to avoid panic. As a result, people led their normal lives and died. The only country that did not censor information about the plague was Spain, which was not involved in the war and did not fear panic.
We do not know where the plague started or exactly when it started and what started it. It may have begun in the US in Kansas, or China, or France. It is called the Spanish flu not because it is believed that it started in Spain, but simply because Spain was the only country that wrote about it.
Like Covid-19, the Spanish flu affected the upper respiratory system of the older population. But unlike Covid-19, the Spanish flu was especially deadly for people aged 20 through 40 and affected the very young. People caught the Spanish flu by being near a person who was infected. The virus could live outside the body for a period of time and be transmitted by touching the object. It had an incubation period; after being inflicted it took time before the symptoms appeared. It existed in cold weather and returned in August, which may happen to Covid-19.
SOLDIERS BURNED TONS OF MANURE IN FORT REILY, KANSAS IN 1918
Consider this. In 1918 the world population was nearly 2 billion. Today it’s more than 7.53 billion. At 2018 population levels, the flu pandemic of 1918 would kill 375 million people. That’s the entire population of the United States plus another 50 million people.
How’d it start?
The outbreak started in Ft. Riley, Kansas in March of 1918 after gale force winds kicked up while soldiers were burning tons of manure, which were full of viruses etc,.. It created a massive yellow dust haze that burned throats and sinuses. Two days later there were 100 cases of flu at the camp hospital, and a week later, 500.
How’d it spread?
That was during World War I. Crowded troop train and ships were massive Petri dishes for the flu virus. Although 48 soldiers at Ft. Riley died, the survivors still carried the virus, and brought it with them to Europe where soldiers on both sides of the conflict were infected. By the time soldiers from all over the world took it back home the virus had mutated into a killer.
In cities and towns across the globe the virus spread like wildfire. At the time in the U.S. factories were running 24/7 to meet wartime demands so it spread there. Thousands of people turned out at patriotic war bond rallies across the nation, and it spread there. Church, school, ballgames — anywhere people congregated you could catch the flu. Eventually all public gatherings were banned, and theaters and bars were shut down, but it was too late.
What were the symptoms?
Unlike the common flu which takes the average person out of commission with a cold, cough, and light fever for a few days, this version caused raging fever and delirium. You coughed blood, your skin turned blue and then black, your lungs filled with fluid and you literally drowned. It worked fast. You could wake up well in the morning, and be dead in 12 hours.
Who suffered the most?
Usually the flu hits the weakest elements of our population hardest — the very young and the very old. The 1918 Pandemic was the opposite. It hit healthy young adults between the age of 21 and 40 the hardest. About 92% of deaths occurred in people under 65.
The 1918 Flu Pandemic by the numbers:
In October of 1918 alone the flu killed over 195,000 Americans, making it the deadliest month in U.S. history.
Worldwide the flu may have killed as many as 25 million people in its first 25 weeks. Older estimates say it killed 40–50 million people 1918-20, while current estimates say 50–100 million people were killed.
As a result of the pandemic the average life expectancy in the United States alone dropped by about 12 years.
In the United States the death toll reached 675,000, which was five times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in World War I.
SWINE FLU IN MEXICO, 2009
YOU TUBE: Swine Flu: Deadly Factory Farms equals Lethal Virus
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http://SupremeMasterTV.com • AW999; Aired on 9 Jun 2009 The 1918 flu pandemic killed 100 million people worldwide. In November 2008, before this devastating flu epidemic, mycologist Paul Stamets of the United States spoke about the threat of a global pandemic arising from the raising of pigs: A pig and a bird will infect a pig, both with flu viruses… • Please share those videos through facebook and other means. Subscribe, comment and like it are fully appreciated. The videos are in the public domain and free to use in any beneficial way. Download Link: http://video.godsdirectcontact.net/da…
Very very interesting. With your permission I will place this following my article in my next book. Can I use your name?
Thank you for this well-informative essay about the Spanish flu. There is much talk now about the Spanish flu of a hundred years ago. Yet youngish people know nothing about it.