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Innovative Practices And Remedies For The Spanish Pandemic Of 1918

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THEORIES, PREVENTATIVE PRACTICES, AND REMEDIES FOR THE SPANISH FLU PANDEMIC OF 1918

Chris Meier
HIS122 – US History Since Civil War
April 5, 2023

The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 was an unprecedented and tragic time in history, not only in the United States but on the global stage. As the second industrial revolution came to a close, people were living in “communities knit closely together by mass transportation, mass media, mass consumption, and mass welfare… something profoundly new under the public health sun, so to speak.”. The medical experts of the early twentieth century had little to no experience in a pandemic of this magnitude with its cities, railroads, and boats shipping soldiers overseas for World War I. Attempts …show more content…

Using experience from previous, albeit smaller, influenza epidemics, scientists had determined that the flu was “a hand-to-mouth infection which travels by direct contact from person to person… spread by droplets diffused by sneezing and coughing.”. This theory was productive and shaped much of how health officials dealt with the public during the pandemic. Scientists did not have to look towards the biology of the virus itself to recognize how it was the people in cities or soldiers in small, cramped boats that most commonly caught the Spanish …show more content…

An analysis of implemented measures and mortality rate during 1918 showed that NPIs reduced the peak death rate. However, reducing the peak death rate does not directly correspond to lessening the total number of deaths. According to Barrow, the practices they implemented (social distancing, quarantine, and masks) could have been very effective but were “ultimately not very successful in depressing overall deaths… [because] the NPIs were not maintained long enough.”. The NPIs had the potential to be effective, but the mandates were not held out for an extended enough period of time. This was because of their lack of popularity in the general public, but also because the protests of the businesses

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The primary source I chose for my analysis is “A Most Terrible Plague: Giovanni Boccaccio”. This document focuses on the account of how individuals acted when a plague broke out and hundreds of people were dying every day. This source is written by Giovanni Boccaccio as it is a story told by him and friends as they passed the time. Boccaccio discusses how “the plague had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc along the way, had now reached the west.” Readers of this source can assume there wasn’t much cures and medicinal technology weren’t used much during this time as even their physicians stayed away from the sick because once they got close they would also get sick.

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During these epidemics accounts by Europeans, and natives were taken documenting the terrible conditions people faced. “The people were overcome by intense cold and fever, The disease was rampant everywhere, It was uncountable the number of people who died this year (DOC 7)” This document shows how terrible diseases were for the native populations, because the natives had not evolved and lived in the same environment as the Europeans they could not tolerate certain illnesses that the Europeans could. In Document 8 you can see an illustration of a man in méxico suffering from a disease in which you are covered in bumps and slowly die. Another reason why disease ran so wildly at the time were because of how Europeans lived.

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This caused millions of people to fall ill from smallpox, a disease that the Spanish had brought from the Old World. The Spanish were

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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

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The flu, incurable at the time, was being passed along in the U.S leaving thousands of citizens sick and being easily passed on. It all began with a small conflict between two countries that soon led into something much more drastic. Serbia was a new and independent country that was anxious to become a large Slavic country. (Doc 4) Serbia soon asked Austria-Hungary if they would like to combine their countries to become a larger country.

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Influenza was a deadly virus that killed millions of people around the world back in 1918. The virus of influenza has eight genes with no fix structure, and the segment structure can change the virus fragmentation endlessly. The virus is independent and can replicate rapidly once it gets into your lungs which can the air pathway and the infected person would drown in their own body. People with the virus can spread it by coughing, sneezing, and sometimes people might touch a surface which has the virus on it and touch their mouth or nose without properly washing it. The virus has eight genes.

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The use of accumulated research from the books created by the Aztecs are compiled into this PBS source which interprets how the epidemic rippled through most infants in the beginning, and many other adults were incapacitated at the pinnacle of the

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I believe that sickness and disease greatly affected the Spanish, and their quest for the New World. However it was not purely bad nor good for them, because it helped them lay siege to cities but also killed many spanish. Some of the changes of culture that were made because of it was the fact that the Spanish were now disliked because of the diseases that they had brought with them to the New World. Some of the example of the disease helping the Spanish was how when Hernan Cortes lay siege to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, he originally fled because of their numbers, but attacked again when there was an outbreak of smallpox and he had more siege weapons.

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Influenza, “ has been described as the greatest medical holocaust in history” and may have killed as many people as the Black Plague”. This illness, (which originated from southeast asia) was obviously quite lethal, but nowadays we have an effective mean of defense, a vaccine, also known as the flu shot! Influenza is a virus that spreads in droplets caused by coughing or sneezing! It’s symptoms include fevers, chills, muscle aches, coughing, congestion, runny noses, headaches, and fatigue. If you notice that somebody has these symptoms don’t worry it’s not a life or death situation, however you might wanna stay away from them, it’ll save you a huge discomfort!

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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.

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When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico in 1519, they brought weapons, horses and other advanced technology but smallpox was their dangerous weapon. Fourth IOPCAM Table, The New York Times source states that the Aztecs had no immunity to smallpox, so the disease swept through the Aztec population, and killed an estimated 5 million people, or roughly 40% of the population. The second IOPCAM table, Encyclopedia Britannica states the impact of smallpox on Aztecs was devastating because of the little immunity Aztecs had, weakening the population leading to illness or death. The 3rd IOPCAM table, Wikipedia states ‘‘The Aztecs had extensive knowledge of medicinal herbs and plants.’ This quote means that Aztecs had great knowledge in treating illnesses, but with a new disease spreading Aztecs had no immunity.

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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.)

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Influenza Pandemic: More Severe than World War I World War I ended in November of 1918, but behind the scenes a new battle was on the rise. As soldiers began to return home, they were unknowingly carrying an infectious disease. A devastating toll of war-related deaths were accounted for, but that does not compare to the global influenza (flu) deaths. Although the violence and new weapons in World War I killed many soldiers, the influenza pandemic of 1918 proved deadlier to a wider range of global citizens.

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Americans should take influenza disease more serious than it is. Do you know it turned into a killer in the winter of 1918-1919, when the flu killed 20 to 40 million people in the worldwide, are you Aware! (“2014 Influenza”, 2014). What happened if you know one of the victims were your loved ones. From that day until now, the studies should have found a good cure that we should not be thinking of flu as of today or otherwise it will be separated among family and friends and costs of treatment.

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The regulations put out by government ensured that the outbreak would come to an immediate halt, and if a new epidemic were to sweep through the states, it would be derailed. Another outbreak of influenza became prevalent in England in 1933. A doctor was able to isolate the disease and noticed how it spread. Lots of this was due to research from the Spanish Influenza, and the death toll was much lower. (Youngdahl)

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