[Voteamerica]

Symptoms in 1918 were so unusual that initially influenza was misdiagnosed as dengue, cholera, or typhoid. One observer wrote, “One of the most striking of the complications was hemorrhage from mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach, and intestine. Bleeding from the ears and petechial hemorrhages in the skin also occurred” (Ireland, 1928:57). A German investigator recorded “hemorrhages occurring in different parts of the interior of the eye” with great frequency (Thomson and Thomson, 1934b). An American pathologist noted: “Fifty cases of subconjunctival hemorrhage were counted. Twelve had a true hemotypsis, bright red blood with no admixture of mucus…. Three cases had intestinal hemorrhage” (Ireland, 1928:13). The New York City Health Department’s chief pathologist said, “Cases with intense pain look and act like cases of dengue … hemorrhage from nose or bronchi … paresis or paralysis of either cerebral or spinal origin … impairment of motion may be severe or mild, permanent or temporary … physical and mental depression. Intense and protracted prostration led to hysteria, melancholia, and insanity with suicidal intent” (Jordon, 1927:265). http://www.nap.edu/books/0309095042/html/62.html

[Domestic Church]

An Uncle of mine died in 1918 of that flu. He was a cadet at West Point and he is buried there. From what I've been reading here and on the Marburg surveillance thread, there is a vast difference between the petechia of 1918 and the petechia seen in various serious illnesses and the diffuse bruising being seen today where there is disintegration of tissue and bleed out often before the patient gets to pneumonia. In many cases the body has dissolved within 3 or 4 hours postmortem.

Last year, China, in vested uranium interest, did send peacekeepers into the region of Angola (where an outbreak started as a Marburg variant that appeared more like Ebola.) At the time I wondered if they were there to collect samples as well.