194 Pediatric Influenza Fatalities Surpass Previous Flu Seasons

spanish flu no of deaths :: Article Creator

Inside The Swift, Deadly History Of The Spanish Flu Pandemic

Scientist Johan Hultin traveled to Brevig Mission, Alaska, a town of a few hundred souls in the summer of 1997. He was searching for buried bodies, and Alaska's frozen ground was the perfect place to find them. Digging through the permafrost—with permission from the town's authorities—he eventually uncovered a woman who died almost 80 years previously and was in a state of excellent preservation. Hultin then extracted samples of the woman's lung before reinterring her. He intended to use this to decode the genetic sequence of the virus that had killed this Inuit woman along with 90 percent of the town's population.

Brevig Mission was just one place that was part of a global tragedy, one of the worst ever to befall humanity: the influenza pandemic of 1918-19. The outbreak of this influenza virus, also known as Spanish flu, spread with astonishing speed around the world, overwhelming India, and reaching Australia and the remote Pacific islands. In just 18 months at least a third of the world's population was infected. Estimates on the exact number of fatalities vary wildly, from 20 million to 50 million to 100 million deaths. If the upper end of that estimate is accurate, the 1918 pandemic killed more people than both World Wars put together. (Get the facts on influenza.)

The first official cases of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic were recorded at the U.S. Army's Camp Funston, Kansas, where this emergency influenza ward held treated patients.

SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK

War and pestilence

Several closely related viruses cause influenza, but one strain (type A) is linked to deadly epidemics. The 1918-19 pandemic was caused by an influenza A virus known as H1N1. Despite becoming known as the Spanish flu, the first recorded cases were in the United States in the final year of World War I. (Explore the memorials of World War I.)

A magnified view of the H1N1 virus responsible for the 1918 pandemic.

SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK

By March 1918 the United States had been at war with Germany and the Central Powers for 11 months. During that time America's small, prewar army had grown into a vast fighting force that would eventually send more than two million men to Europe. (How the United States entered World War I.)

American forts experienced a massive expansion as the entire nation mobilized for war. One of these was Fort Riley, Kansas, where a new training facility, Camp Funston, was built to house some of the 50,000 men who would be inducted into the Army. It was here in early March that a feverish soldier reported to the infirmary. Within a few hours more than a hundred other soldiers had come down with a similar condition, and more would fall ill over the following weeks. In April more American troops arrived in Europe and brought the virus with them. The first wave of the pandemic had arrived. (What is the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic?)

Deadly speed

The Spanish flu strain killed its victims with a swiftness never seen before. In the United States stories abounded of people waking up sick and dying on their way to work. The symptoms were gruesome: Sufferers would develop a fever and become short of breath. Lack of oxygen meant their faces appeared tinged with blue. Hemorrhages filled the lungs with blood and caused catastrophic vomiting and nosebleeds, with victims drowning in their own fluids. Unlike so many strains of influenza before it, Spanish flu attacked not only the very young and the very old, but also healthy adults between the ages of 20 and 40.

Biologists at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London are analyzing brain and lung tissue from victims of the 1918 pandemic as part of global efforts to understand the virus. Here, wax-mounted tissue samples sit on a list of children's names who fell victims to influenza in 1918.

SPL/AGE FOOTSTOCK

The principal factor in the virus's spread was, of course, the international conflict then in its last phase. Epidemiologists still dispute the exact origins of the virus, but there is some consensus it was the result of a genetic mutation that perhaps took place in China. But what is clear is that the new strain went global thanks to the massive and rapid movement of troops around the world.

Become a subscriber and support our award-winning editorial features, videos, photography, and more—for as little as $2/mo.

The drama of the war also served to obscure the unusually high mortality rates of the new virus. At this early stage, the illness was not well understood and deaths were often attributed to pneumonia. Strict wartime censorship meant that the European and North American press were unable to report outbreaks. Only in neutral Spain could the press speak freely about what was happening, and it was from this media coverage that the disease took its nickname.

Deadly Contact

Native Americans treat patients infected by European diseases in this 1591 engraving by Theodor de Bry.

GRANGER/ALBUM

Epidemics are as old as civilization: Signs of smallpox appear on 12th-century B.C. Egyptian mummies. Increased contact led to the spread of disease. In the sixth century A.D. The Plague of Justinian moved along trade routes, killing 25 million people across Asia, Africa, Arabia, and Europe. Eight centuries later, the Black Death wiped out 60 percent of Europe's population. When Europeans settled in the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, they introduced smallpox, influenza, and measles to the native peoples, killing an estimated 90 percent of the population. Here, Native Americans treat patients infected by European diseases in a 1591 engraving by Theodor de Bry.

The second wave

The overcrowded trenches and encampments of the First World War became the perfect hosts for the disease. As troops moved, so the infection traveled with them. The wave that had first appeared in Kansas abated after a few weeks, but this was only a temporary reprieve. By September 1918 the epidemic was ready to enter its most lethal phase.

From The Black Death To Spanish Flu And Smallpox, A Brief History Of Plagues

No matter where you look up the meaning of the word "plague", it's never a good thing. It can be confusing, because as a verb, plague means "to cause continual distress", yet as a noun, it means a deadly disease that spreads very quickly – what we would today call a "pandemic". It can also refer to one specific disease, Yersinia pestis.

On top of that, a plague can refer to a large number of insects or animals in one place that are causing a lot of damage, like the locusts currently swarming in east Africa.

In this article, we'll talk about the plagues, or pandemics, that humans have battled with throughout history.

7 films about epidemics and viral outbreaks

Black Death

The worst plague in history was the Black Death, which may have killed up to 200 million people. This was caused by a bacteria, Yersinia pestis, that first hit Europe in the 1340s.

People still disagree over where it came from, but the most common theory is that it first emerged in Asia, in a certain type of flea that lived on rats. In fact, when scientists in the 1900s were looking for the cause of a similar disease, they came to Hong Kong as part of their investigation.

Back in the 1300s, life was pretty dirty, as people didn't know anything about hygiene. They also didn't have much medical knowledge – they had never heard of antibiotics or quarantine. This meant that the plague killed around 90 per cent of the people it infected, and in some cases, it killed everyone it infected. But this didn't wipe it out.

Several waves of the Black Death swept the globe and killed hundreds of millions of people.

Photo: Shutterstock

Two more deadly waves of the plague hit in the 1500s and 1800s. In fact, scientists think that it may have been around before the 1300s, as there are records of a similar disease in Rome in 146AD, known as the Justinian plague.

The symptoms of the plague were awful. It started with a swelling in the lymph nodes under the armpit or in the groin, until they were about the size of an apple. Once the swellings burst, people had a fever, vomited blood, and soon died.

Spanish flu

After the devastation of the first world war came the Spanish flu. It did not actually come from Spain, but this was where it first became bad enough to be noticed. It killed up to 40 million people – more than all the deaths of the first world war. It spread across the world, aided by the movement of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to far-off battlefields.

It started out like a normal cold, so people were not too worried about it. But then those who were infected developed pneumonia, a lung condition which makes breathing difficult. After that, victims eventually suffocated.

No one knows where the Spanish flu started, but recent studies show that the virus may have emerged when strains of pig and human flu infected the same host, and their genes combined to create a new mutation.

Medical workers wore masks to avoid the Spanish flu at a US Army hospital in 1918.

Photo: Shutterstock

Smallpox

There is no doubt that plagues changed the course of history. They caused empires to fall and new ones to arise. Smallpox first emerged around 68,000 years ago. We have no idea how many people it has killed, but we do that in the 20th century alone it killed around 500 million people.

Smallpox was introduced to the Americas by European colonisers in the 1400s. It was responsible for the fall of the Aztec and Incan empires, and killed up to 90 per cent of the Northern Native American population – allowing the Europeans to steal the land and claim it as their own.

Coronavirus: How to stay busy while school is closed

Smallpox was the leading cause of death in the 18th century. And, like all good plagues, it was awful, causing sufferers to break out in small blisters all over their bodies that caused them great pain.

People did notice, however, that once someone had survived smallpox, they never got it again. So, in the 10th century, people in China began taking some pus from the infected blisters and scratching it into their own skin. This allowed the body to learn the virus' code and build immunity to defeat it. In 1798, an British doctor, Edward Jenner, developed a vaccine. In 1966, the World Health Organisation began a global vaccination campaign to wipe out smallpox for good. The last-ever case was diagnosed in 1977. Smallpox is one of only two infectious diseases to have been completely stopped. Hooray for vaccines!

Spanish Flu: 'We Didn't Know Who We'd Lose Next'

Hannah Mawdsley, who is researching letters by Spanish flu survivors for her PhD, found out she had a relative who was killed in the pandemic

An extraordinary archive of letters written by survivors of the Spanish flu pandemic, which paints a vivid picture of a nation gripped by fear and chaos, is helping to provide insights into life in the shadow of a killer disease.

Hannah Mawdsley, who is researching the documents at the Imperial War Museum, describes the letters as a "precious window into the human experience of the pandemic", which killed more than 250,000 people in Britain and as many as 100 million globally.

Bequeathed to the museum by historian and journalist Richard Collier, the collection was amassed in the 1970s and is comprised of about 1,700 accounts of those who witnessed the pandemic first hand.

The BBC England data unit analysed medical officers' records for English districts held by the Wellcome Library to show the impact of the pandemic.

The joy of Armistice Day celebrations in London in 1918 contrasted with the misery being experienced by many

One nine-year-old girl from Coventry whose 35-year-old mother and seven-year-old sister died two days apart wrote to Mr Collier in the 1970s about the impact of the disease.

"It caused quite a sensation having to have a double funeral on November 11th 1918, which was the very day the First World War ended," she wrote.

"I can remember very well when the cortege was on its way to the church. Bells, hooters and all sounds of celebration were raving but how silent people stood who realised it was our funeral.

"It really was a terrible time, not knowing who we were going to lose next."

In what was a cruel twist of fate, Spanish flu arrived on British shores just as soldiers were returning home from the horrors of war.

"You've got harrowing stories of soldiers who've survived the war... They're on their troop ship on their way home and they get a letter to say that their wife's died," said Ms Mawdsley, a PhD researcher at Queen Mary University of London.

"There was all this celebration, joy and relief at the end of the war that collides with death and grief."

One letter told of how Spanish flu left people with "disturbed minds" - some sufferers developed a psychosis, which in extreme cases led to suicide and even murder

The young son of a Baptist minister in Leicester wrote of his father sleeping in the cemetery chapel while he conducted funerals from dawn until dusk.

He wanted to avoid taking the virus home to his wife and eight children - all of whom survived. They were the lucky ones: Leicester was hit especially hard with more people dying there in 1918 than there were babies born.

About one in every four deaths in the city that year was attributed to influenza.

"The funeral corteges followed each other through the town," the man wrote to Collier on 19 May 1973.

"Often there was more than one coffin in a hearse. Graves were used to bury more than one person, especially when more than one of a household were victims at the same time."

The letters describe Spanish flu's "spectacular" symptoms, said Ms Mawdsley.

"Some victims suffered something called heliotrope cyanosis which was kind of a creeping blue which started in your fingertips, tips of your ears and nose and lips but you could go completely black," she said.

"As it progressed you were more and more likely to die. Immediately after death the corpse would go completely black, which must have been very traumatic for loved ones to see."

The relentless processions of bodies through the streets was a sight a man from Stepney in east London could never forget.

"The undertakers couldn't make the coffins quick enough, let alone polish them," he wrote on 16 May 1973. "The bodies changed colour so quickly after death they had to be screwed down to await burial.

"The gravediggers worked from dawn to dusk seven days a week to cope. The smell of those deaths was indescribable."

RAF personnel in Dorset killed themselves in the woods due to Spanish flu, one letter said

Spanish flu also afflicted some people with a psychosis that could lead to murder and suicide. Newspaper reports detailed some of these deaths, which the courts attributed to "delirium during influenza".

A man who was in the RAF at Blandford Camp in Dorset wrote: "A small wood below the camp was called 'suicides wood' because of the number of men, who had flu, committing suicide there.

"The flu seemed to leave people with disturbed minds."

A baker from Norfolk battered his wife and two sons to death before hanging himself, according to the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail of 6 November 1918.

"Sitch was attacked by the malady last week, and eventually the whole family were obliged to take to their beds," the newspaper said.

"Yesterday morning a neighbour discovered Sitch's body hanging from a line in the bedroom and the wife and children were afterwards found battered to death in another room. A chopper and bayonet were found in the room."

A James Sydney Shaw, 33, severed the windpipe of his two-year-old daughter Edith, according to the Aberdeen Evening Express of 26 November 1918.

"The facts were very sad because the accused was very fond of his child," it said.

"On the night of October 18 a neighbour heard Mrs Shaw call out: 'Come quickly! My husband has gone mad!' and she found [the accused] lying on the floor with a wound in the throat.

"Little Lucy... Was sitting up in bed crying with blood on her. Leonard too, was crying, and poor little Edith was lying back in the bed with her throat cut."

When examined by a doctor, Shaw "did not seem to know anything about the tragedy". He was declared insane due to "delirium during influenza".

A quarter of the British population fell ill with Spanish flu at some point during the pandemic and about 228,000 people died, according to the Wellcome Library.

By contrast, the number of people who died of influenza in England and Wales in 2016 was 430.

Spanish flu "paved the way" for a sleeping sickness virus in the 1920s according to a German doctor

In places like Leicester, Coventry Felixstowe and Malmesbury, about 25% of deaths in 1918 were attributed to influenza.

Viruses were not well understood at the time and doctors were at a loss as to how to treat people.

"'Cures' ranged from standard camphor and quinine to alcohol - whisky in particular was sworn as the cure," said Ms Mawdsley.

"But some more extreme cures like creosote and strychnine were used. Basically, people were so desperate they would try anything."

An advert in the Northern Whig in Belfast hailed Oxo gravy as an "immense service as a protective measure".

"Nursing was one of the only things that really helped and there was a big call out for volunteer nurses at this time as so many had been shipped off to the Western Front," said Ms Mawdsley.

"Obviously, people putting themselves in that situation are going to be exposed to the virus more and there are accounts of nurses succumbing to the flu after having volunteered for service."

Elizabeth Ann Mawdsley's death certificate stated that she died from influenza and pneumonia

Today, those most vulnerable to flu are the very young and the elderly. But Spanish flu proved disproportionately fatal to those in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

"You've got this quite astonishing peak in exactly the age range of men serving in the war and nurses serving on the Western Front," said Ms Mawdsley.

A year into her research, the historian discovered her great-great-grandmother, 57-year-old Elizabeth Ann Mawdsley, died of flu on 14 December 1918.

"She was rather a formidable looking lady, quite stocky and determined looking," she said.

Ms Mawdsley's ancestor was the wife of a canal boatman in Lancashire and her death certificate stated she died of influenza and pneumonia.

An advertisement hailed Oxo as a preventative of influenza

"The average mortality rate of Spanish flu was between 2 and 5% worldwide," she said,

"That's a lot of people whose families would have lived through it, and survived to tell the tale.

"Many people will, like me, have undiscovered personal family links with this global catastrophe, perhaps to be found in diaries and letters."

Spanish flu has not generated the same commemorative culture as World War One and Two and consequently England has no specific memorials to the victims of the pandemic.

In the UK, the most deadly period of Spanish flu was between October and December 1918 and clusters of graves from that period can be found in cemeteries across the land.

"For me, these grave clusters serve as a kind of unofficial memorial to those that died, and illustrate the speed with which the disease struck and help us understand how terrifying it must have been," said Ms Mawdsley.

"These letters go further as one of the only other physical memory resource of the reality of what Spanish flu was like."

Additional reporting by Faye Hatcher

A trailer for BBC Two documentary The Flu That Killed 50 Million

Search This Blog

Mumps