can we learn anything from it, i had bener heard about it till about ten years ago, don't even recall elders talking about it as child, but it must have had some impact, and did people self-isolate, etc, what did ordinary do, there doersn't seemt o be social upheaval as a consequence either.
The 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic, Lessons, histories, long term effects, etc.
- Thread starter treelover
- Start date
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
You've already been offered information on how it changed society on other threads, why not read those?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
See for example How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Revolutionized Public Health
pls give it a rest, no time for this now
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
It's interesting reading some of the same arguments.
From the Manchester Guardian 20 December 1918:
"if examination and isolation were generally enforced our most deadly plagues could be banished from the land... there is also no doubt that any attempt to clear out contagious disease by such bureaucratic methods would be met by embittered protests. If so thorough and logical policy is ever to be adopted it must be demanded by the nation and not forced upon it."
From the Manchester Guardian 20 December 1918:
"if examination and isolation were generally enforced our most deadly plagues could be banished from the land... there is also no doubt that any attempt to clear out contagious disease by such bureaucratic methods would be met by embittered protests. If so thorough and logical policy is ever to be adopted it must be demanded by the nation and not forced upon it."
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
I found this article interesting.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Not sure if there's anything useful for us today in there, though. I will say that I find hospitals depressing. So many of them make an effort to block out the outside world as completely as possible. You need to give sick people a connection to the world.
The Open-Air Treatment of PANDEMIC INFLUENZA
The H1N1 “Spanish flu” outbreak of 1918–1919 was the most devastating pandemic on record, killing between 50 million and 100 million people. Should the next influenza pandemic prove equally virulent, there could be more than 300 ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Not sure if there's anything useful for us today in there, though. I will say that I find hospitals depressing. So many of them make an effort to block out the outside world as completely as possible. You need to give sick people a connection to the world.
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equationgirl
Respect my existence or expect my resistance
I'm reasonably certain from everything I've read about it that there wasn't self isolation. Most households had to go out to work in one capacity or another, for starters. With the decimation of WWI some households may only have had one adult left to work anyway, with any children old enough to also working.
If you take many cities and towns, people lived in such close quarters that isolation may well have been pointless.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
The book The Great Pandemic has a bit about in America in Chicago & Pittsburghhow the streets were silent, the buses empty and no one going into work including nurses.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Not only that but it arrived in many places eg Boston before authorities had a chance to devise or promulgate countermeasures. If you look at (eg) lovecraft's Herbert West: reanimator you'll get an inkling of the horror, where doctors worked selflessly to save others before succumbing themselves
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
Anyone suffering from a cold with raised temperature should stay at home in the public interest: influenza - Newspapers.com
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bimble
floofy
Have you seen this? We are currently being Philadelphia.
qz.com
This chart of the 1918 Spanish flu shows why social distancing works
St. Louis' response to the Spanish flu is informing the battle against the novel coronavirus.
qz.com
elbows
Well-Known Member
Have you seen this? We are currently being Philadelphia.
This chart of the 1918 Spanish flu shows why social distancing works
St. Louis' response to the Spanish flu is informing the battle against the novel coronavirus.
Ahh, synchronised thoughts!
My paternal grandad died along with four of his daughters, my aunties, in 1919. Two more of my dad’s sisters died in the late 1920s from TB.
No health service, couldn’t afford doctors. They died. Which is why my parents praised the creation of the NHS whenever possible. My dad used to get really upset at people who moaned about suffering common colds and ‘flu’.
No personal history from my dad, just lots of fatalistic anguish.
'Be careful': Spain's last 1918 flu survivor offers warning on coronavirus
José Ameal Peña, 105, is watching on anxiously as a new pandemic sweeps globewww.theguardian.com
a warning form history, 105 year old, last Spanish SF survivor.
SheilaNaGig
Break requested
I found this article interesting.
The Open-Air Treatment of PANDEMIC INFLUENZA
The H1N1 “Spanish flu” outbreak of 1918–1919 was the most devastating pandemic on record, killing between 50 million and 100 million people. Should the next influenza pandemic prove equally virulent, there could be more than 300 ...
Not sure if there's anything useful for us today in there, though. I will say that I find hospitals depressing. So many of them make an effort to block out the outside world as completely as possible. You need to give sick people a connection to the world.
Exactly.
There's plenty of really good evidence that access to nature, even remotely, increases healing. Hospital beds with windows, even just putting posters up with pictures of trees, can make a significant difference to outcomes. I expect that some of that sunlight benefit was also crossing over to access to nature.
From obesity to anxiety and depression, recovery from injury or surgery, from infection, social health, cognitive behaviour, all outcomes are benefitted by exposure to nature.
What are the Benefits of Interacting with Nature?
There is mounting empirical evidence that interacting with nature delivers measurable benefits to people. Reviews of this topic have generally focused on a specific type of benefit, been limited to a single discipline, or covered the benefits delivered ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
It's probably one of the drivers for this lemming like rush to the parks and outdoor spaces this weekend.
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
My gran lived through the 1918 flu but I don't remember her ever mentioning it (she was 14 at the time). Wonder if the trauma of the war with the flu immediately following led to people not talking about it afterwards.
petee
no gods, no malarkey
my mother passed at 101 in 2014, and did recall the flu. (my father was 2 years older but never mentioned it.) she said 2 things i remember: that everyone had to stay indoors, windows shut (and this was in the back of beyond, the north shore of mayo); and a family friend was coming (= walking, however far that was) to visit (which, it occurs to me, he shouldn't have been doing) and dropped dead of it en route.
so the lesson would seem to be, stay in.
so the lesson would seem to be, stay in.
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
Yeah, a small price to pay in the circumstances. There was an 108-year old woman in Salford who has just died of coronavirus who also lived through the 1918 pandemic. There can't be many left who experienced both outbreaks now I'd guess.
Tributes to loving 108-year-old who survived two world wars and Spanish flu but couldn't beat coronavirus
Hilda Churchill passed away on Saturday just hours after being diagnosed with Covid-19.
I think it’s considered bad form to refer to the 1918 Flu pandemic as ‘Spanish Flu’. Mostly because it had fuck all to do with Spain.
The UN couldn’t even agree a joint statement on the current pandemic as the US delegation were insisting it to be described as the ‘Wuhan Virus’ or ‘Chinese Virus’.
The UN couldn’t even agree a joint statement on the current pandemic as the US delegation were insisting it to be described as the ‘Wuhan Virus’ or ‘Chinese Virus’.
oryx
Sitting on the bok of the day
I read somewhere (can't remember where or I'd post the source, but chances are it's easy to find) that the 1918 pandemic was referred to as 'Spanish 'flu' because Spain was the only country to be honest about its fatalities.
Aladdin
Well-Known Member
My mother's grandparents died of the Spanish flu. They were both relatively young. 42 and 43. Their 7 children were split up and sent to different relatives all over Ireland. They rarely saw each other after that. My grandmother was only 3 years old when sent off to Clare with her brother who was 4. Her oldest sister, was 20 and was nursing. She couldn't mind them all so they were split up. The nurse went on to marry a well known Donegal Sinn Fein man whom she met when he was on the run. Great story about that. He was pretending to be a doctor at a retreat island called Lough Derg. Someone broke a leg and my grannys sister who was on the island for the summer working as a nurse, looked up the register to see if there was a doctor on the island. He had registered himself as a doctor. So she asked him for help. He had to admit that he wasnt a dr and was actually on the run. They apparently fell in love at first sight and married shortly after. However, he was captured by the British and put in jail where he developed lung problems. He died aged 36 of lung disease...probably TB.
My grandmother didnt have a whole lot of time for her oldest sister. She felt she abandoned her siblings. She never really got over being separated from her family and sent to live 160 miles from Donegal. Her closest sister ended up in Dundalk. She didnt see her again til she was married herself and in her 30s.
My grandmother didnt have a whole lot of time for her oldest sister. She felt she abandoned her siblings. She never really got over being separated from her family and sent to live 160 miles from Donegal. Her closest sister ended up in Dundalk. She didnt see her again til she was married herself and in her 30s.
The 1918 pandemic, both waves started in a US army base in Kentucky.
The troops brought it to France on the troop ships where many American servicemen died on the journey.
There was a total news blackout in the countries involved in the War as it was seen as it could undermine the morale in the people at home.
That’s why it was it was able to spread as people were unaware of it. But as oryx states above, Spain, being neutral had no benefit from keeping the pandemic a secret and it was widely reported in an effort to save lives.
Kate Sharpley
Well-Known Member
Not so much 'long term effects' but a look back at what it looked like at the time:
"...the epidemic struck a Spain that was barely surviving poverty levels. The contemporary press highlighted the good work of the authorities in, say, organizing clean-up squads or shutting down the schools. But to be realistic, most of the children scarcely set foot in a school, as they had to work from a very early age. The labour organizations were unable to concern themselves with the disease and used to chalk it up to the dire hygienic conditions in which the working class lived. Thus the Catalan unions affiliated to the CNT went ahead with the Sants Congress in the summer of 1918 (by which time the first wave of the epidemic had begun to ease) and the Asturian miners held their congress in September, whilst the UGT held its national congress in Madrid in October (in mid-surge).
"Bear in mind that the virus went unidentified until 1935 and that the working class of the time was already familiar with the impact of cholera, TB, diarrhoea and fever, typhus, polio and measles. Each epidemic claimed lives by the thousands and the poorest strata of society were especially hard hit."
[Also,] From Solidaridad Obrera, 15 October 1918. Manuel Buenacasa reports the death of Jose(p) Escofet from the ‘flu.
“The flu, the ‘harmless illness’ that the authorities speak of, took but a few hours to carry off our friend who was treacherously attacked more than once at point blank range by the enemies of worker organization, but who failed to finish him off. He has perished, still full of enthusiasm and youth, aged just twenty-six. News of his demise will be cause of rejoicing for many. We are genuinely pained by the passing of this kindly, decent and hard-working fellow who contributed his enthusiasm, his liberty and his life to the revolutionary workers’ organization and the idea of human redemption.”
The 1918 flu pandemic in the CNT media
"...the epidemic struck a Spain that was barely surviving poverty levels. The contemporary press highlighted the good work of the authorities in, say, organizing clean-up squads or shutting down the schools. But to be realistic, most of the children scarcely set foot in a school, as they had to work from a very early age. The labour organizations were unable to concern themselves with the disease and used to chalk it up to the dire hygienic conditions in which the working class lived. Thus the Catalan unions affiliated to the CNT went ahead with the Sants Congress in the summer of 1918 (by which time the first wave of the epidemic had begun to ease) and the Asturian miners held their congress in September, whilst the UGT held its national congress in Madrid in October (in mid-surge).
"Bear in mind that the virus went unidentified until 1935 and that the working class of the time was already familiar with the impact of cholera, TB, diarrhoea and fever, typhus, polio and measles. Each epidemic claimed lives by the thousands and the poorest strata of society were especially hard hit."
[Also,] From Solidaridad Obrera, 15 October 1918. Manuel Buenacasa reports the death of Jose(p) Escofet from the ‘flu.
“The flu, the ‘harmless illness’ that the authorities speak of, took but a few hours to carry off our friend who was treacherously attacked more than once at point blank range by the enemies of worker organization, but who failed to finish him off. He has perished, still full of enthusiasm and youth, aged just twenty-six. News of his demise will be cause of rejoicing for many. We are genuinely pained by the passing of this kindly, decent and hard-working fellow who contributed his enthusiasm, his liberty and his life to the revolutionary workers’ organization and the idea of human redemption.”
The 1918 flu pandemic in the CNT media
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
An interesting article from the 1847 flu pandemic on the "it's just seasonal flu" attitude:
THE INFLUENZA. - It is surprising to what an extent the apprehensions of society are modified by mere accessory circumstances in the afflictions that fall upon them.—It depends upon the familiarity or the novelty, on the mild symptoms or aggravated personal suffering by which an epidemic may be characterised, whether its progress will be regarded with utter indifference, or give rise to a general panic.
The return which we published on Wednesday of last week's mortality in the metropolis is of the most alarming nature. The average number of deaths in the corresponding week of five preceding autumns was 1,046. Last week they amounted to 2,454 being an increase of near 150 per cent. beyond the calculated average, and of nearly 50 per cent above the return of the precious week, which was itself unusually high. And yet the feeling of the public might be described as rather one of general discomfort—more particularly of annoyance at the interruptions caused to business by the temporary absence of its conductors or subordinates—than of any profound solicitude as to the havoc which death is making in our population, and especially among those whose weaker sex and tender age must make their loss most bitterly felt by those whose homes they adorned, and whose dearest hopes and affections were centered in them.
Now, it is certainly much the best that there should be no panic about the spread of disease in the metropolitan districts, which having been making slow but gradual advances for more than a year, is now increasing at a rate which we take to be utterly unexampled; which at all events is quite unparalleled by anything in the experience of the present generation. Panics, whether monetary or sanitary, or of what kind soever, are detestable things, productive of no good in any way, and certain to compromise the safety and aggravate the sufferings of those whose fears have taken that sudden unreasoning form. And yet the insouciance with which this great city looks on at so unexampled a destruction of human life is worthy nothing, if it were merely a psychological phenomenon. If twenty deaths occurred daily from cholera, or five from plague, our entire population would be thrown into alarm, and most of those whose means and vocations permitted them would hasten to abandon what they would look upon as a doomed city. But an Increase of two hundred deaths per diem produced by other causes occasions no perceptible alarm.
A cold or a cough is such a harmless thing, even though it kills its thousands a week. Influenza is privileged: it may slay its myriads with impunity, and nobody will be frightened at it. Its invisible air gun makes no report; and it is by the rattle of death's artillery, and not by the force and frequency of its aim, that men are wont to estimate the dangers to which they are exposed. Cholera, on the other hand, is a comparative stranger, and we grudge him every victim he takes from us. His advent is watched from afar; and bulletins of his progress, while he is still on the eastern confines of Europe, are copied into all the newspapers, and perused with fear and trembling by all the old women in the kingdom, and by many who are neither old nor women. So great are the inconsistencies of man.
One justification, however, he has, which is, that cholera attacking a very small proportion of the population, kills more of those whom it attacks than any known disease. Influenza attacks, say 250,000 persons, and kills 10,000 of them. The city looks on with apathy. Cholera, in the one visit we have had from it, attacked about 12,000, and killed about 6,000. Men do not count their slain on the battle-field of death. Their terror is a selfish terror. It is by the pangs of individual suffering, and not by the sum total of the carnage, that they estimate the might of the slayer.
THE INFLUENZA. - It is surprising to what an extent the apprehensions of society are modified by mere accessory circumstances in the afflictions that fall upon them.—It depends upon the familiarity or the novelty, on the mild symptoms or aggravated personal suffering by which an epidemic may be characterised, whether its progress will be regarded with utter indifference, or give rise to a general panic.
The return which we published on Wednesday of last week's mortality in the metropolis is of the most alarming nature. The average number of deaths in the corresponding week of five preceding autumns was 1,046. Last week they amounted to 2,454 being an increase of near 150 per cent. beyond the calculated average, and of nearly 50 per cent above the return of the precious week, which was itself unusually high. And yet the feeling of the public might be described as rather one of general discomfort—more particularly of annoyance at the interruptions caused to business by the temporary absence of its conductors or subordinates—than of any profound solicitude as to the havoc which death is making in our population, and especially among those whose weaker sex and tender age must make their loss most bitterly felt by those whose homes they adorned, and whose dearest hopes and affections were centered in them.
Now, it is certainly much the best that there should be no panic about the spread of disease in the metropolitan districts, which having been making slow but gradual advances for more than a year, is now increasing at a rate which we take to be utterly unexampled; which at all events is quite unparalleled by anything in the experience of the present generation. Panics, whether monetary or sanitary, or of what kind soever, are detestable things, productive of no good in any way, and certain to compromise the safety and aggravate the sufferings of those whose fears have taken that sudden unreasoning form. And yet the insouciance with which this great city looks on at so unexampled a destruction of human life is worthy nothing, if it were merely a psychological phenomenon. If twenty deaths occurred daily from cholera, or five from plague, our entire population would be thrown into alarm, and most of those whose means and vocations permitted them would hasten to abandon what they would look upon as a doomed city. But an Increase of two hundred deaths per diem produced by other causes occasions no perceptible alarm.
A cold or a cough is such a harmless thing, even though it kills its thousands a week. Influenza is privileged: it may slay its myriads with impunity, and nobody will be frightened at it. Its invisible air gun makes no report; and it is by the rattle of death's artillery, and not by the force and frequency of its aim, that men are wont to estimate the dangers to which they are exposed. Cholera, on the other hand, is a comparative stranger, and we grudge him every victim he takes from us. His advent is watched from afar; and bulletins of his progress, while he is still on the eastern confines of Europe, are copied into all the newspapers, and perused with fear and trembling by all the old women in the kingdom, and by many who are neither old nor women. So great are the inconsistencies of man.
One justification, however, he has, which is, that cholera attacking a very small proportion of the population, kills more of those whom it attacks than any known disease. Influenza attacks, say 250,000 persons, and kills 10,000 of them. The city looks on with apathy. Cholera, in the one visit we have had from it, attacked about 12,000, and killed about 6,000. Men do not count their slain on the battle-field of death. Their terror is a selfish terror. It is by the pangs of individual suffering, and not by the sum total of the carnage, that they estimate the might of the slayer.
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