One-Fifth of the World Infected

“I had a little bird,
its name was Enza
I opened the window

And in-flu-enza.

 

The Great Influenza of 1918 could have killed as many as 50 to 100 million worldwide, far more than World War I. No disease in human history has caused so many fatalities, not even the Black Death. The 1918 influenza killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has in 24 years. The 1918 bug apparently had avian origins. Using modern scientific methods, the Armed Forces Institute has reconstructed 75 percent of the virus’s genome using scraps of viral RNA preserved in lung tissue of victims. We still do not know why the virus spread so rapidly or why it killed so efficiently. Unfortunately, pessimists claim that unless the World Health Organization gets all the resources it needs and government’s act promptly another pandemic is probable. Optimists say that with vaccines and antiviral drugs this deadly virus could not have a comparable impact except in the Third World where medical technology is severely limited.

 

John Barry in his new book, “The Great Influenza” chronicles the onslaught of the 1918 flu. Unfortunately, governmental bodies throughout the world were slow to recognize the pervasiveness of this disease, distributing reassurances until too late. When the inevitable panic ensued, Prescott, Arizona made it illegal to shake hands and New York imposed a one year jail term and $500 fine for coughing in public without covering one’s mouth. In the United States more than 25 million took ill and 575,000 died. It is estimated that from 20-50 million people died in India. 

 

The origins of the influenza are not precisely known. Early cases were diagnosed in Kansas, Spain, and China. 

 

One insidious feature of the flu was that it was most severe on those people in the prime of life, not the young or the elderly. Life expectancy in the United States for 1918 dropped by 10 years. The flu tended to kill young healthy adults over those with weakened immune systems.  The death rate for 15 to 34- year-olds of influenza and pneumonia were 20 times higher in 1918 than in previous years.

 

Franklin Roosevelt, Walter Lippman, and Lloyd George, the English Prime Minister, got sick. General Ludendorff, the commander of the German army, claimed that it caused the failure of the German spring offensive in 1918, leading ultimately to German capitulation in November. Sufferers of the disease went through—high fever, chills, vomiting, incontinence and delirium. Some coughed so hard that they ruptured abdominal muscles. Death came instantly to some; they literally keeled over in the street.