Doctors dismissed Spanish flu as a 'minor infection' for three years before ... 1918 pandemic ...

Daily Mail Online ^ | May 24, 2019 | SAM BLANCHARD

[Oscar in Batangas]

Doctors in the early 1900s dismissed Spanish flu as a 'minor infection' just years before it killed 50 million people, according to scientists.

Countless lives could have been saved if medics had taken it seriously and worked out how to stop the virus before the disastrous outbreak in 1918, researchers say.

A study has found there were investigations as early as 1915 into a mysterious illness which was killing World War I soldiers in France and England.

...

[Oscar in Batangas]

Jumping forward 100 years

New Headline:

Politicians & the US CofC dismissed illegal immigration as a 'minor inconvenience' for the early part of the 21st century before all the diseases they let in via the unscreened illegal immigrants went on to kill millions of people

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[Oscar in Batangas]

The boat rides weren’t instantaneous, the accommodations at Ellis Island weren’t up to Waldorf-Astoria standards

But, by dam,

Immigration authorities had a halfway decent chance to stop diseased people from becoming ‘patient one’ of health disasters all over the USA

I fear that we have forfeited that line of defense in the name of whatever the dumlibs want to call it

[BluH2o]

My grandmother died in late October 1918, less than two weeks before the end of WWI, a victim of this flu epidemic. My father was five years old at the time.

[Leaning Right]

My grandfather got the flu in 1918, but thankfully he recovered. Otherwise, I would not be here.

[lilypad]

My husbands grandmother lost her husband and 5 year old son in the same week due to the flu. She went on to raise her other three sons and daughter alone. Never ever accepted charity.

[proud American in Canada]

And thank goodness for that. :)

[PeterPrinciple]

Countless lives could have been saved if medics had taken it seriously and worked out how to stop the virus before the disastrous outbreak in 1918, researchers say.

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and here we are today, we know the behavior that causes AIDS and multiple other problems, but we can’t stop it.

[PUGACHEV]

My father got the flu one afternoon, and the doctor never came back after the first visit. Later, when asked why, he said he didn’t expect the boy to be alive in the morning.

[Ancesthntr]

... and today Health authorities are pretty much ignoring Ebola, which is far worse in its lethality and leaves the few survivors as permanent reservoirs of the disease, because it is “only a minor problem in central Africa.”

There is a vaccine for it which is fairly effective, but it is not being mass-produced. There are only twelve beds, yes only 12, on the entire North American continent that are capable of handling people who have Ebola. Only a couple of years ago, we had a nurse come here who was infected, who showed up at a hospital in Dallas with Ebola. She infected one other person, and that hospital was completely shut down. None of the other health workers wanted to be there, and they were prepared to quit their jobs rather than expose themselves to this horrific disease. Yet, despite all the evidence of the incredible potential that this disease has four being the new Black Plague, we have done essentially nothing in the interim.

Anyone interested in reading about ebola and the idiocy surrounding it (because there is always idiocy out there, even among supposedly intelligent people) should take a look at the articles written by a long time ER nurse at the following link: https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/search/label/Ebola?m=0

[Oscar in Batangas]

Mrs in Batangas is a retired ER nurse from Houston. Situations that arose back then gave rise to some wildly amusing stories.

The funniest was how the security guard inadvertently cleared out the waiting room in two minutes flat just by grabbing a handfuls of masks and passing them out like they were mints.

Someone had come in with a bad cough and a slight fever. The guard then put two and two together and got four (HUNDRED).

The lame got up and ran, and all the people who thought they couldn’t wait til the morning all decided to ‘take two aspirins’ and I’ll be back in a few days. Shortness of breath patients found enough lung capacity to sprint to the bus stop. (Did I mention that this is a 90% welfare location?)

It was reported to be the easiest ER shift ever for that little hospital.

[samtheman]

I recently watched a great documentary on this on youtube (don’t have the link) and three of the things that stand out in my mind from that documentary:

1. People were so frightened and so convinced that anyone not wearing a mask was risking everyone’s life (and so ignorant of the fact that the masks were 0.0% effective against the tiny size of viruses, which were unknown) that there was at least one case of a man not wearing a mask being beaten to death by a crowd.

2. A General on the front in WWI (Pershing?) was in desperate need of reinforcements and made a strong plea to Wilson to send troop ships immediately. Wilson was told that packing soldiers on ships at this time would probably be sentencing a third of them to death by flu. Wilson acceded to the general’s request and sent the ships, and indeed a large number of soldiers did die of the flu from the trip.

3. The medical profession was completely baffled by the fact that they couldn’t find the bacteria responsible, and they mis-identified different candidate bacteria one after another and sometimes actually got false-positive studies of anti-bacterial “vaccines”. They didn’t know about viruses and wouldn’t have the microscopes to see viruses until the 1930s, when the electron microscope was invented.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Oh, nonsense.

What were they suppose to have done? Invented Tamiflu?

It was a mild infection until it was not.

[kaila]

A nurse did not transmit Ebola to a Dallas hospital. It was a Liberian- Thomas Eric Duncan. He flew to the US probably knowing he had Ebola, and didn’t care if he was a walking epidemic.He was admitted to a hospital in which he infected 2 ICU nurses. He died, and those ICU nurses are living with the effects of Ebola.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Forty three years ago, during the Swine Flu panic, a physician said in the 1918 flu epidemic, most people died of pneumonia. As we now had antibiotics, there was no need to worry about the swine flu. So he said.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks fieldmarshaldj.

Gina Kolata, author of "Flu" -- her keyword, newest to oldest:

• The flu can kill tens of millions of people. In 1918, that's exactly what it did [2018]
• How Does the Flu Actually Kill People? [2017]
• The Frog Slime Cure for Flu [2017]
• Frog snot gives hope for flu cure [2017]
• The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 [2015]
• End of common cold could be in sight [2015]
• OSCILLOCOCCINUM: Yay or Nay? [2014]
• Scientists Discover First 'Virological Penicillin'(Honeysuckle) [2014]
• Look Back 250 • Quarantine during 1918 Spanish flu epidemic saves lives [2014]
• Enterovirus D68 And Influenza Far More Dangerous Than Ebola In U.S., Say Top Physicians [2014]
• The Next Pandemic [2014]
• Hospitals Full-Up: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic (Video) [2012]
• Diary From The HMNZ Tahiti During The 1918 Pandemic [2012]
• Synthetic protein kick-starts the immune system to prevent all strains of the flu [2012]
• UCLA scientists find H1N1 flu virus prevalent in animals in Africa [2011]
• NIH scientists find earliest known evidence of 1918 influenza pandemic (and more) [2011]
• New study re-examines bacterial vaccine studies conducted during 1918 influenza pandemic [2010]
• Chronicle of the Devastating Flu Epidemic is Frightening, Readable [2009]
• Earlier flu viruses provided some immunity to current H1N1 influenza, study shows [2009]
• Soldier's Letters Give First-Hand Look at Spanish Flu Pandemic [2009]
• Samples taken from 90-year-old body of Spanish flu victim Sir Mark Sykes [2009]
• Survivors of 1918 Flu Pandemic Immune 90 Years Later [2008]
• Study Shows Why the Flu Likes Winter [2007]
• When killer flu struck [ "Spanish Lady" flu, 1918 ] [2006]
• Past may hold clue to future flu fight Secrets may be in blood of 1918 survivors [2006]
• The Bird Flu Breakdown - Part 1: Two Children in Vietnam [2006]
• Bird flu's evolution, links to 1918 pandemic studied, debated [2005]
• Experts Unlock Clues to Spread of 1918 Flu Virus [2005]
• Deadly 1918 Epidemic Linked to Bird Flu, Scientists Say [2005]
• Scientists: 1918 Killer Spanish Flu Was a Bird Flu [2005]
• Saline spray may help control flu [2004]
• Deadly Flu Outbreak: Is History Repeating Itself? [23,000 victims in Madagascar] [2002]

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Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Kolata

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[Ancesthntr]

OK, you’re correct on the source of the Ebola...but I stick with us being utterly unprepared for this, probably more so than we were to deal with the Spanish flu 100 years ago.

[Ozark Tom]

Another factor in the immune response, a ‘cytokine storm’ is credited in the excessive deaths of those in the 20-40 age group.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711683/