ipl-logo

Influenza In 1918 Essay

1599 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Causes and effects of the flu of 1918

Sicknesses that Shaped the World: Spanish Flu and COVID-19 In 1918, a sickness swept the horizon of Kansas that would eventually change people’s everyday life. The 1918 Flu, also known as the H1N1 virus, was an illness unlike the United States had ever seen (“History of the 1918 Flu Pandemic”). As anything that is unknown and scary would, the news about this influenza swept through the United States via newspapers. In October of 1918, The Topeka State Journal published newspaper reports about the flu epidemic. The people of Topeka, Kansas relied heavily on reading reports like these in order to keep up with the most current information about the deadly virus. In the midst of new information coming forward, Americans were desperate to stay …show more content…

In the article, it was mentioned that the flu was now a new and normal conversation topic in every aspect of life. The article goes on to talk about the need to stay home in an attempt to not spread the virus any further. Everyday life typically looked like going to work, school, and church among other things. However, with the spread of the flu out of control, everything changed. It was no longer acceptable to go do any of those things. On top of everyday activities being canceled, social gatherings were also no longer happening. Things like weddings, lodge meetings, and parties had to be put on hold. While the flu was rapidly infecting many Americans, it was changing the lives of many more people. This infection was changing every aspect of life as people knew it. The article went on to mention some of the people in the community who were ill with the flu. Some of the people mentioned, like Mrs. Slawson and her children were recovering quite well. Others, like Mr. Clyde Slawson did not recover well. The article concludes by mentioning Dr. Ensign’s move to Denver, Colorado in order to work in a hospital organized by the government. The town of Topeka was supportive of Dr. Ensign as he went to take on the daunting task of continuing to fight against sickness, specifically the flu. The Topeka State Journal was rising up to the occasion in order to provide the most reliable and relevant information possible in order to keep the people of the city informed about the flu

Show More
Related
914 Words | 4 Pages

Another effect the pandemic had on people can be seen in the way they socialize. Some people are still afraid of giving hugs, traveling to see family, and going to crowd places like the mall. These behaviors are examples of the effect of trauma people experienced during the

Read More
741 Words | 3 Pages

In Rio de Janeiro, the newspapers were only concerned with the spread of the flu (Doc 4). The historical context that this article took place in South America shows the negligence of medical centers. The flu had been known to the world as well as the alarming rate of the spread of it, yet there were no medicals safety precautions being taken place. By time the flu and reached South America, medical facilities had the chance to make safety precautions as to stop the spreading of the virus. The same angry reaction occured in British Samoa as the newspapers blamed the British government for neglecting to issue isolation when influenza had spread to Samoa (Doc

Read More
112 Words | 1 Pages

Boston Smallpox Epidemic of 1721: When smallpox broke out in Boston, Cotton Mather introduced an untested medical procedure called “inoculation”, which would introduce a small amount of the virus to a patient, in hoping they would become immune to it. Many were opposed to it, even though it worked. Many people died due to the epidemic. 31. Common Sense: Thomas Paine wrote a book called "Common Sense", it sold more than 150,000 copies when the population was only 3 million.

Read More
1016 Words | 5 Pages

The novel Fever 1793 , written by Laurie Anderson, is a narrative which describes the yellow fever epidemic in the late 1700’s. This epidemic caused the deaths of 5,000 or more people in a town of 50,000 in only 3 months. A young girl named Mattie from the town of Philadelphia has to deal with the deathly illness spreading around the world. The novel begins with the death of Mattie’s childhood friend, Polly. The citizens continued their daily lives shrugging off the death as a fluke and tried to ignore the fact that something was very wrong.

Read More
611 Words | 3 Pages

After the flu took most of people, every aspects of the life have been changed; the survivors in the book live a totally different life as the past. Hig lives in the hangar of an airport with his dog, Jasper, and Bangley. They live in the condition where should be always careful of people that they do not know or do not live with and where everyone is hostile to another. Everyday lives are an endless suffering and hardship. They should always worry about day to day survivor and intruders who is coming randomly and unexpectedly.

Read More
1062 Words | 5 Pages

Almost sixty years later the Covid-19 pandemic spread across America with breathtaking speed. Covid-19 devastated America because the people failed to act on Eisenhower's

Read More
247 Words | 1 Pages

The main social issue in the graphic novel Fever Year by Don Brown affects more than one person. The main social issue in the story is illness, and the Spanish Flu affected a very large group of people around the world. In the story it states, “One-third of the world has been infected” (Brown 81). This shows a lot of the world’s population is affected by just one virus. The Spanish Flu was an epidemic because of how quickly it spread and because of that it affected the whole world.

Read More
750 Words | 3 Pages

She demonstrates this through the absence of technology. Technology was the main use for communication in the pre pandemic world as Arthur was an actor, he thrived off the film world and television. It enabled people to connect with others on a global scale. However, when the Georgia flu hit, it caused people to lose access to technology which catalysed the world to collapse. As “For the first few weeks there were people here and there, but then there were none.

Read More
348 Words | 2 Pages

When the Spanish Flu appeared in Chicago, peaking at 2000 deaths a day, health commissioner John Dill Robertson decided to make some drastic decisions. First, all large gatherings were banned, sporting events; political meetings and banquets were all cancelled. Schools were shut down and parks were closed. Theaters and cabarets were closed as well. Weddings were postponed and funerals were cancelled.

Read More
1128 Words | 5 Pages

During the 2014 Ebola panic, a research group consisting of scholars from Arizona State University, Purdue University, and Oregon State University found that, as each news report relating to the ebola virus was released, an increase in ebola related searches within social media bases, like Twitter, occured (Towers, Afzal, Bernal, Bliss, et al., 1). These searches consisted of the symptoms and spread of the virus. The increase shows that the news, a trusted entity in American society, constantly running articles gives rise to panic of disease in people’s daily life. Even though there were only a few people to contract the Ebola virus, the news played segments on the disease as if a pandemic was inevitable, thus increasing the fear in American citizens. In addition to the Ebola virus panic that swept the nation in 2014, a malfunction with an online epidemic tracker caused widespread hysteria over the influenza virus (Towers, Afzal, Bernal, Bliss, et al., 1).

Read More
1682 Words | 7 Pages

In the Americas, populations decreased by 50 percent to 95 percent by 1650. The illness component of the Columbian Exchange was distinctly one-sided.(Nunn, N., & Qian, N. (2010). The Columbian Exchange: A history of disease, food, and ideas. The Journal of Economic Perspectives: A Journal of the American Economic Association, 24(2), 163–188.).In 1493, swine flu was spread by the pigs on board Columbus' ships, making Columbus and other Europeans ill and killing the indigenous Taino people of Hispaniola, who had never been exposed to the virus before. Smallpox and other disease germs carried by the conquerors caused the Great Dying.(Edward Winslow, Nathaniel Morton, William Bradford, and Thomas Prince, New England’s Memorial (Cambridge: Allan and Farnham, 1855), 362.)

Read More
548 Words | 3 Pages

Describe a problem you 've solved or a problem you 'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution. In The Great Influenza, Barry states that one must “accept uncertainty”.

Read More
799 Words | 4 Pages

To start, the narrator was “un morenito from Villa Con” that was remembering when the world was coming to an end, all he was doing was “chasing a girl” (115,107). On the other side of social class, Alex, the narrator’s colleague from Brown University, was more passionate about taking “pictures of all the infected people” rather than realizing to stay away from the horrific situation (111). Also, Mysty was not excused from this selfish behavior because her only desire was to “move to paris” (112). Although there is a difference in social status, the actions of all three friends are still compelling to the author’s message. As the narrator states, there “wasn’t anything close to humane, but at nineteen who needed humane” (111).

Read More
1130 Words | 5 Pages

This new outbreak proved that the American treatments and vaccinations were effective. The death toll was reasonably lower than the Spanish Influenza outbreak, which showed improvement in lifestyle for people around the world and in America. Cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco that had at first refused to acknowledge the severity of the outbreak now closed schools, churches, and other public gathering places. (Stock) The U.S. government took initiative and displayed their power by mandating closings of schools, and creating a cleaner society for years to

Read More
1268 Words | 6 Pages

Straight A’s on a report card after a long stressful semester. School’s out and now the whole summer is for relaxing, or is it? No, because you totally forgot about that AP summer assignment you picked up before school ended, didn’t you? Now you are going to be putting off the packet of work until last minute where you’re going to stress about not having it done and last minute be rushing to complete it. Piles of work accumulating into the deep pits of your binder and yet there doesn’t seem to be enough time to get to it.

Read More

More about Influenza In 1918 Essay

Related Topics

Open Document