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