Influenza of 1918
The worst epidemic the United States has ever
known
Fort Riley, Kansas
March 9, 1918
• Company cook Albert Gitchell reported to the camp infirmary
with complaints of a "bad cold”.
• Corporal Lee W. Drake voicing similar complaints
• By noon, camp surgeon Edward R. Schreiner had over 100 sick
men on his hands
US took it to Europe
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In March,1918
84,000 American "dough-boys" set out for Europe
118,000 the next month
Carried with them a virus that would prove to be more deadly
then the rifles they carried.
Fall of 1918
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Cut through US
Schools closed
Suicides
US wore masks
Social life changed
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You did not go anywhere
Friends were your enemies
Theatres closed
Restaurants closed
Bayer Aspirin
• Bayer aspirin was just hitting the market in the US at the time of
the “Spanish flu”
• Bayer was a German company and many Americans distrusted it and
thought that it was a form of germ warfare
195,000 in one month
War is over!
• San Francisco celebrates with a parade of 30,000
• All wore masks
It was gone!
• 60-100 million people world wide died of this strain of influenza
• The Spanish Flu vanished within 18 months.
• The illness left as abruptly as it came.
October 5, 2005
• Recreated the virus from lung tissue of victims
• Genetic mutations and markers that are similar to those in flu
viruses found in birds