When killer flu struck [ "Spanish Lady" flu, 1918 ]

News & Observer ^ | http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/514837.html | Jim Nesbitt, with contributions by David Raynor and Denise Jones

[SunkenCiv]

With a fast-striking and deadly reach that spanned the globe, the worst influenza outbreak of the 20th century is more than a sepia-toned and horrific sidebar of history. It is also a harbinger for a future influenza disaster that medical researchers say is inevitable and long overdue, a grisly example of the worst nature has to offer... Mabel Allen Boyd was one of at least 13,703 North Carolinians killed by this hyper-lethal flu virus, a mutation that still baffles modern-day scientists. Eighty-eight years after her death, she is still the face of the Spanish flu pandemic for Leon Spencer, 101, who lives in the Whitaker Glen retirement community near Five Points in Raleigh... "I was kindly stunned because she was almost like a family member," said Spencer, who was 13 in that deadly fall of 1918... For almost every North Carolinian buried by this remorseless killer, there was a parent or orphan, a spouse or sibling -- a loved one left behind, stunned by immediate grief and saddled with the long-running guilt of a survivor.

[SunkenCiv]

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Police officers in Seattle wear masks to protect them from the flu in December 1918. The pandemic killed millions. Photo From the National Archives at College Park, Md.

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[SunkenCiv]

Scientists: 1918 Killer Spanish Flu Was a Bird Flu
Fox News | October 05, 2005 | Daniel J. DeNoon
Posted on 10/05/2005 2:20:11 PM EDT by stm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1497138/posts

[SunkenCiv]

Ordinarily modern history topics don't get a ping, but this is flu season.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[Shimmer128]

I had to go to the dr today (sick) and just got my first flu shot ever. Hope it works.

[wideawake]

In NYC there were stacked pine boxes on streetcorners as funeral homes struggled to collect and embalm the dead.

In Queens where I grew up, there are whole sections of cemeteries with grave after grave of young people who died suddenly in 1917/1918.

[leilani]

Consider this: More Americans died during the Spanish flu pandemic than were killed in battle during all of America's wars -- from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War, both World Wars and the current conflict in Iraq.

((shudder)) And all in the space of a few months. Really puts things in perspective. I wonder why it just petered out almost as quickly as it started, too.

[SunkenCiv]

It also puts AIDS into perspective, for that matter, or West Nile Virus. West Nile killed something like 54 people in Michigan when it peaked a few years back -- and that wasn't the daily, weekly, or monthly total, it was the entire total. Still a lot of people, obviously, but the 1918 flu epidemic made all of those look like a bad fart.

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Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic by Gina Kolata

[Coleus]

years ago my grandma relayed a story to her children that she remembered the coffins stacked up on the streets of our city. I'm not too sure whether the flu killed them or secondary bacterial infections that took advantage of the opportunity of a compromised immune system. If that's the case, then antibiotics can be used to kill off the bacterial infections while the flu takes its course.

[Sam's Army]

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but I haven't heard much about Bird Flu lately...

[Max in Utah]

...while the flu takes its course.

The problem with avian flu is that it causes an extremely high temperature; that's the most dangerous part of it.

[djf]

This was an odd one. Young and healthy people seemed to suffer worse. IIRC, the virus utself attacks the white blood cells.

So people who are healthy and have strong immune systems produce the most amount of white blood cells. And give the virus lots of lunch.

The other thing was the fantastic quickness it killed folks. It was not unusual for a person to wake up in the morning feeling fine and be cold and dead before midnight that same day.

[wolfcreek]

How did this flu manage to spread across the world? Was it at least partially due to veterans returning from the war.

[Brofholdonow]

Somehow, some way, Bush's fault!

[Letaka]

As DM patient should not wait so long for flu vaccine

[Shimmer128]

See my tagline????

[Ciexyz]

My grandparents' generation. They told stories of homes being quarantined with quarantine signs, in their neighborhood.

[Jessarah]

How did this flu manage to spread across the world? Was it at least partially due to veterans returning from the war.

A friend told me that recently he read in a book that this flu was started in Ft.Riley, Kansas. They thought it first attacked the horses, then crossed over to the soldiers. Then, as the men got on trains going to the coast for WW 1, they spread it with those they came in contact. There is some recent book out that tells about this, but I'm not sure of the title.

[Jessarah]

Maybe it's the book you posted above???

[SunkenCiv]

I guess it flew the coop.

[SunkenCiv]

In the Kolata book, research is mentioned regarding flu outbreaks at least a couple years earlier, with each year getting worse, and culminating in the 1918 disaster, then tapering off through about 1920.

Also in the book, a hypothesis regarding a bad flu outbreak in the 1890s; those who had the flu that year and were still living in 1918 had immunity, suggesting some kind of similarity between those outbreaks. There were a number of "killer" flu outbreaks in the second half of the 19th century (I think there's info on the CDC website), but again, those were nothing compared the Spanish Lady.