Spaniard – a pandemic that was attempted to sweep under the carpet

It may seem improbable today, but since the Spanish pandemic, which killed some 50 million people, it took more than half a century to receive some attention. Historians have focused so much on the events of World War I that, for example, the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1924, in its review of the “most turbulent years” of the twentieth century, did not even mention the pandemic. Why was it so quiet about the “Spanish flu”?

1. The Spaniard was the most dangerous strain of flu that existed and has been studied so far
2. The pandemic lasted from 1918 to 1919 (some sources say until 1920). The duration of the Spanish therefore coincided with the First World War
3. Half a billion people have become infected with the virus, and the death toll has reached about 50 million
4. The 1918 Spanish symptoms seemed so unusual to doctors that they initially misdiagnosed the flu as dengue, cholera, or even typhoid fever.
5. Warring States hid the flu not only to protect the morale of citizens and soldiers. What other reasons were there and what were the results of such action?
6. You can find more such stories on the Onet homepage.

Some commentators had asked about the lack of interest in the Spanish language before. In December 1918, that is, during the peak of the second wave, The Times wrote: “Since the Black Death of the world has never been such a plague … [and] never, never, has been so calmly accepted”. Meanwhile, Major Greenwood, co-author of the official UK pandemic report, noted in 1935: “in fact, the emotions from [influenza pandemic] were weaker than from much less severe epidemics.” What factors contributed to such a disrespectful attitude towards the Spanish woman?

A bad time in the war in which the world plunged

The obvious reason was World War I. This is a very important fact. Every country involved in the war tried to control public sentiment, and most of it was censored. In order not to undermine the morale of the fighting nations, it was not mentioned in the press during the rather mild first wave of the pandemic. On the other hand, the second wave (October 1918) coincided with the Allied attack on Cambrai and the fall of the Hindenburg Line. In November, when the number of deaths peaked, there was a truce. In this situation, many families hid their relatives to the sound of bells and the shouts of crowds celebrating their longed-for peace in the streets.

In Great Britain, the censorship was based on the “Defense of the Kingdom Act”. It made it possible to remove from the press pages all news that could pose a threat to the strength of the spirit of citizens. Both newspapers and officials during the First Wave in the spring and early summer of 1918 agreed that there was no serious threat. The Illustrated London News wrote that the flu was “mild, showing that the virus is weakened by frequent transmission.” Sir Arthur Newsholme, the then leading public health expert, suggested that dealing with influenza, not war, was fundamentally unpatriotic.

1. Spanish woman: what you don’t know about the biggest epidemic in history? [WE EXPLAIN]

The second wave of the pandemic, which started in late summer and deepened in the fall, was more deadly and yet there was still an attempt to cover it up. In August, the Italian interior minister denied reports of the spread of the flu. In September, British officials and press barons censored the news that the prime minister had caught the flu while on a business trip to Manchester. Instead, he explained his prolonged stay in the city with a “severe cold” during the storm.

The fighting states hid the flu not only to protect the morale of their citizens and soldiers, but also to prevent their enemies from finding out about the epidemic raging in them. Meanwhile, the Spanish so thinned the German troops of General Erich Ludendorff that he had to postpone the planned offensive.

In 1917, California Senator Hiram Johnson made the famous sentence: “The first casualty of war is truth.” The US government passed a law that imposed a prison sentence of 20 years for “speaking, printing, writing or publishing any disloyal, blasphemous or abusive opinion about the US government.” At the same time, he undertook a massive propaganda effort, as it was decided that “what is true and what is false does not matter much”.

All these actions even influenced the name of the killer flu. The term “Spanish” caught on because Spain was one of the few countries to declare an epidemic in 1918. The state remained neutral throughout the war, so the press freely wrote about cases of a deadly disease, including the infection of King Alfonso XIII, who became infected in the spring of 1918.

Flu casualties have not been counted precisely either. In 1927, epidemiologists estimated their number at only 21 million. But perhaps the most important reason they were reluctantly mentioned was that, unlike soldiers who gave their lives for their homeland, they did not fit the narrative of sacrifice for the country.

1. The Spanish pandemic through the eyes of a historian

Historians dusted off the pandemic of 1918 when a new one, this time the so-called Hong Kong flu (1968). In 1974, a book by Richard Collier was published, based on the testimonies of 1,7 thousand. survivors of killer flu. However, it was not until 1976 that the historian Alfred Crosby compared the Spanish pandemic to other great plagues of the past, such as the Black Death, which in the 40th century killed about 70-XNUMX million people. Crosby was also the first to prove that the pandemic had a significant impact on history.

The Spanish pandemic started earlier

Historians are not entirely sure of the source of the pandemic, while the first recorded cases took place at a US military camp in Kansas in March 1918. Meanwhile, a study by scientists at Queen Mary University of London proves that the Spanish pandemic started two years earlier than we believe and was ignored as a “minor infection”. British scientists believe that if the doctors of the time had concluded that the flu was killing soldiers in Etaples, France and Aldershot, England in 1916, millions of deaths could have been avoided.

Co-author of the said study, prof. John Oxford, a virologist at the Blizzard Institute, says: “We identified disregarded outbreaks of infection then judged to be harmless. Now we see them as an announcement of an impending catastrophe ».

Prof. Oxford and prof. Douglas Gill, a military historian, claim that the Spanish woman appeared as early as 1915 and 1916 in the administrative district of Etaples in northern France. At that time, up to 30 people were admitted to British army hospitals in France and England each year. soldiers with typical flu symptoms. However, as early as 1917, the Etaples medics treated hundreds of patients who were infected with what they described as an “extremely deadly disease” with “complex” respiratory symptoms.

Photo East News/ Mediadrumimages/Media Drum

In Aldershot, in the south of England, doctors were treating patients whose infections were very similar. In both cases, the disease progressed rapidly, ranging from minor symptoms to death. Mortality reached 50 percent. Flu was already appearing in England and France at that time. According to Oxford and Gill, what was considered a minor respiratory infection at the time was the source of the 1th century’s worst pandemic. Researchers also looked at contemporary work that shows that all variants of the H1N1915 virus, or influenza A virus, appeared between 1916 and XNUMX. The same studies also identified the virus reservoir. These were water birds: geese, ducks and swans. Most likely, the soldiers were infected through their faeces.

1. Five Ways To Survive Previous Outbreaks. Also valid today

– The virus must have mutated – explains prof. Oxford. – Has lost virulence but gained the ability to spread. Laboratory experiments with the pre-pandemic avian flu called H5N1 indicate that only five mutations led to this change. A unique feature of the virus prior to the pandemic was its inability to spread from person to person. Doctors at Etaples and Aldershot were deceived by the lack of spread of the infection. Therefore, they did not associate it with the flu.

– Only when the virus is able to spread from person to person does a catastrophe occur – adds Prof. Oxford. – Just three primary infected patients, with a two to three day incubation period, can generate one million infections in 40 days. And that’s what probably happened between 1918 and 1919.

In 1918, the symptoms of a Spanish woman seemed unusual to doctors

1918 began with a gentle spring wave. The symptoms were so moderate that some wondered if this disease was really the flu. Several Italian doctors have argued in their articles that “febrile illness, now widespread in Italy, is not flu”. British medics shared this conclusion. In an article published in The Lancet in July 1918, we read that the spring epidemic was not influenza because the symptoms, although similar to flu, were “short-lived and so far had no recurrence or complications”.

Meanwhile, within a few weeks of the publication of the Lancet, the world was engulfed in a second wave of the pandemic. Again, the researchers doubted the disease was flu, but because … it was so virulent. Healers who had been infected during the first wave were already immune, which provided convincing evidence that the next one was caused by the same virus.

Photo Mediadrumimages/Media Drum/East News

The symptoms of 1918 seemed so unusual to doctors that they initially misdiagnosed Spanish as dengue, cholera, or even typhoid. Written: “One of the most striking complications was haemorrhage from the mucous membranes, especially from the nose, stomach and intestines. There were also ear bleeding and skin ecchymosis ». German medical practitioners observed frequent “hemorrhages occurring in various parts of the inside of the eye”. While one American pathologist noted: “50 cases of subconjunctival hemorrhage have been counted”, the chief pathologist of the New York City Department of Health noted: “These cases look like dengue cases … nose or bronchial hemorrhage … cerebral or spinal paresis or paralysis … movement disorder, which can be severe or mild, permanent or temporary… depression, hysteria, melancholy and madness with suicidal intent ».

In the US, the combination of increased control and disregard for truth has resulted in dangerous health consequences. To protect morale, officials commonly used half-truths or lies. They were helped by the press, which, although not subject to censorship, cooperated with the government propaganda machine.

1. Conspiracy theories during the Spanish epidemic. They sound familiar today as well

As the flu neared a town or town, local officials first reassured the public, saying health care would prevent infection. And when the first cases of flu appeared, they routinely insisted that it wasn’t Spanish. However, when the epidemic was already raging, it was assured every day that the worst was over. This pattern was repeated again and again. In Chicago, the public health commissioner stated that “worry kills more people than the epidemic”.

In Philadelphia, doctors wanted to warn citizens through the press ahead of a war bond fundraising march planned for September. However, the editors of the local newspaper refused to print their letters. It was also not possible to convince the director of public health to cancel the march. The event attracted several thousand people, creating the perfect environment for the virus to spread. The flu killed more than 12 people in Philadelphia in the next four weeks. people.

When, in 1918, the US military’s medical department recognized the threat that influenza posed to soldiers, it called on officials to halt troop transports and conscription, and requested that the troops be quarantined. Unfortunately, resistance from high command, the Department of Defense, and President Woodrow Wilson turned out to be too great. The administration eventually suspended one conscription and reduced the occupancy of military ships by 15%, but otherwise took no measures recommended by medical workers. The president was persuaded that the US should not suspend shipments, as a result of which the soldiers continued to fall ill. About 45 died of the flu by the end of the year.

As late as April 1919, a Spanish woman disrupted the Paris peace conference when President Wilson became ill. As with the British Prime Minister, the US administration hid this information from the public. Instead, the president’s personal physician reported to the press that Wilson had caught a cold in the Paris rain.

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