How Did The 1918 Flu Spread – The deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has killed more than 1,500 people in four countries since May, is a powerful reminder of just how deadly and unpredictable the virus can be. Ninety-six years ago this week, the city of Boston was dealing with its own virus outbreak — the start of one of the deadliest natural disasters ever.
In 1918, the death toll was staggering. An estimated 5 to 100 million people died worldwide. The dreaded disease in question? Not Ebola. influenza.
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“It’s a terrible disease,” said John Barry, author of “The Great Influenza.” There is real fear. People bleed not only from the nose and mouth, but even from the eyes and ears. People can die within 24 hours of first showing symptoms. “
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In the spring of 1918, communities around the world experienced small spikes in influenza cases. Scientists and doctors knew something happened, but it wasn’t particularly fatal, Barry said. In fact, the symptoms were so mild that authorities weren’t sure it was the flu. So when two Navy sailors stationed at Boston’s Federal Dock entered the infirmary with flu symptoms on August 27, 1918, no one batted an eye. The next day, eight more people came. The next day, 58.
“It’s not clear why, but it’s at Camp Devens and at the docks that have Navy facilities,” Barry said. “This is the first outbreak of a very deadly epidemic.”
Within a week, soldiers and sailors were dying. Thousands more fell ill. With the outbreak of World War I, civilians put in a lot of effort in the rear, and it was only a matter of time before the disease spread beyond the barracks. By early September, sick civilians were filling city hospitals. Officials here turned to the Red Cross and the federal government for help. Nurses, medical supplies and more are pouring in from other parts of the eastern U.S., Barry said.
But that’s not enough. By October, the city of Boston and communities across the Bay State were in limbo.
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“Closing schools, closing theaters, closing bars, basically reducing all public interaction,” Barry said.
Mortuaries and cemeteries can’t keep up. Despite the rising death toll, vigils and funerals are still discouraged. Even Sunday church services were eventually banned. All that’s left to do is manage the chaos and let the disease develop naturally. By the end of 1918, nearly 5,000 residents of Boston alone had died. Only Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were hit harder.
“At least 20 percent, maybe 30 to 40 percent of the population is affected,” he said. “Probably 2 to 3 percent of the population died.”
Today, we use the word “flu” to describe everything from sniffles to stomach acid. We have seasonal vaccines and antivirals, we have Nyquil. But Barry points out that in 1918, treatment options were limited, as was our understanding of the disease.
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“In fact, they didn’t even realize what a virus was in 1918,” he said. “Are viruses very small bacteria or are they distinct entities?”
But that doesn’t mean valuable lessons haven’t been learned, said Dr. David Hooper, chief of infection control at Massachusetts General Hospital. Many of these lessons guide the way we respond to viral outbreaks today—from flu to Ebola.
“Certainly, in infectious disease, in the training that’s designed to make you understand it. In public health, epidemiology, you’ll understand it.”
In the wake of the pandemic, waves of research have led to breakthroughs in our understanding of what influenza is and how it works. The deep-buried secrets of the virus itself are still being unraveled. In 2005, scientists reconstructed the 1918 strain using samples of genetic material from the victims’ long-dead lungs.
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“We know from the 1918 pandemic that people’s travel is one of the ways that influenza spreads and spreads among people,” Hooper said. likelihood.” disease based on its genetic makeup. “
What they learn could prove invaluable when the next pandemic hits. There is no doubt that it is coming. Both Barry and Hooper say we’d better remember 1918. Influenza is a stubborn little virus.
“I think we always have to have a high degree of respect for the power of these types of viruses and other pathogens,” Hooper said. “My guess is we’ll never be able to eradicate influenza viruses from the face of the earth.”
The deadly influenza pandemic of 1918, which killed at least three times as many people as World War I, wreaked havoc in every corner of the globe. Its first eruption occurred in Boston 96 years ago this week.
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GBH News brings you the stories, local voices and great ideas that shape our world. Follow us so you don’t miss a thing! An emergency hospital at Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918. “Of the 12 men sleeping in my squad room, seven fell ill at the same time,” recalls one soldier. New Submission Photo Collection / Otis Historical Archives / National Museum of Health and Medicine
Haskell County, Kansas is located in the southwestern corner of the state, near Oklahoma and Colorado. In 1918, sod houses were still common, barely distinguishable from the dry, treeless prairies from which they were dug. It was once home to cattle—a now-bankrupt ranch once housed 30,000 head of cattle—but Haskell farmers also raised pigs, which may be a clue to understanding the origins of the crisis that terrorized the world that year. clue. Another clue is that the county is on a major migratory route for 17 bird species, including sandhill cranes and mallard ducks. Scientists today understand that avian flu viruses, like human flu viruses, can infect pigs, and that when an avian flu virus and a human virus infect the same pig cell, their different genes can be reshuffled and swapped like playing cards, thereby New, perhaps particularly lethal, viruses are produced.
We can’t say for sure that this happened in Haskell County in 1918, but we do know that in January there was an outbreak of influenza so severe that even though influenza was not a “reportable” disease at the time, a local A doctor named Loring Miner—a burly, curmudgeonly figure in local politics who became a doctor before the germ theory of disease was accepted—but his intellectual curiosity Keeping him abreast of scientific developments—and tirelessly alerting the U.S. Public Health Service. The report itself no longer exists, but it was the world’s first documented notification of unusual flu activity that year. local newspaper the santa fe
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, confirming that something strange happened at the time: “Mrs. Eva Van Alstine has pneumonia… Ralph Lindeman is still very ill… According to Reports that Homer Moody is very ill…Pete Hesser’s three children have pneumonia…Mrs. J.S. Cox is still weak…Ralph McConnell Ernest Elliott was very ill this week…Ernest Elliott’s youngest son, Merting, has pneumonia,…most of the country has raglippe or pneumonia.”
Several Haskell men who had been exposed to the flu traveled to Camp Funston in central Kansas. A few days later, on March 4, the first soldier known to have the flu reported becoming ill. The huge army base was training soldiers for World War I, and within two weeks 100 soldiers were hospitalized and thousands more fell ill in the barracks. Thirty-eight people died. Infected soldiers could then carry the flu from Funston to other military camps in the U.S. (24 of the 36 large military camps had outbreaks), sicken tens of thousands, and then spread the disease overseas. At the same time, the disease spread into American civilian communities.
The flu virus mutates rapidly, to such an extent that it is difficult for the human immune system to recognize and attack it, even from one season to the next. A pandemic occurs when a brand new, highly virulent influenza virus that the immune system has never seen before enters the population and spreads around the world. Common seasonal flu viruses usually only bind to the cells of the upper respiratory tract (nose and throat), which is why they spread easily. The virus of the 1918 pandemic infected the cells of the upper airways, spread easily, but also penetrated deep into the lungs, destroying tissue and often causing viral and bacterial pneumonia.
While some researchers believe the 1918 pandemic started elsewhere, such as France in 1916 or China and Vietnam in 1917, many other studies point to a U.S. origin. Macfarlane Burnet, an Australian immunologist and Nobel laureate who has studied influenza for much of his life, has concluded that the evidence “strongly suggests” that the disease began in the United States, And spread to France with the “coming of the American army”. Camp Funston was long considered the birthplace of the pandemic until I did historical research,
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