The Spanish Flu

(1)
Name: Adam Aldabbagh
Class: 9E
Student Number: 193
Teacher’s Name: Mr. Eamonn McKenna
 Table of Contents
About It……………………………………………3/4
The Disease
Causes and symptoms

The start…………………………………………. 5/6

The ending……………………………………….7
Treatments
Effects

Conclusion…………………………………………8
Bibliography………………………………………9
 About It
The Disease
Spanish flu, commonly referred to as the "Spanish Lady," acquired its incorrect
name partly due to censorship during the war. Spanish flu had caused significant
losses for both the Allied forces and the Central Powers, but the combatants
suppressed news in order to save secrets that the adversary may find useful.
Millions of Spaniards died from the flu in May and June of 1918, according to
uncensored newspapers in Spain, and these stories were widely covered by
international media. Outraged by the derogatory term, Spain blamed France,
claiming the illness originated on French battlefields and had been blown by the
wind over the Pyrenees Mountains. Yet the misunderstanding persisted. That
year, the world and the United States were devastated by influenza, notably the
Spanish flu. Around 21 million people were killed by the tiny murderer as it made
a full rotation of the earth in just four months. More Americans died from the
Spanish flu in 1918 in the United States than during World War I, World War II,
the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. 675,000 individuals.
Pharmaceutical firms rushed nonstop to develop a vaccine to stave off the
Spanish flu, but it was too late. Before they had isolated the virus, it vanished. (2)
Where this pandemic started, however, has never been made apparent. This issue
cannot be definitively answered since influenza is an endemic illness, not only an
epidemic one. According to some medical historians and epidemiologists, the
1918 pandemic originated in Asia, citing a deadly pulmonary illness epidemic in
China as its precursor. Others have hypothesized that Chinese or Vietnamese
workers traveling to or working in France may have transmitted the illness. J.S.
Oxford, a British scientist, has more recently proposed that the 1918 pandemic
began in a British Army base in France, when a condition they dubbed "purulent
bronchitis" first appeared in 1916. Soldiers who died from this outbreak, which is
now known as ARDS, had autopsy findings that remarkably resembled those of
troops who died from influenza in 1918. (3)
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 Causes and symptoms
Further studies revealed that the Spanish flu was a type A influenza virus
that originated in a bird host (bird flu). It eventually made its way to
animals. Influenza types A and B are what cause seasonal flu epidemics
(outbreaks in communities). The only influenza strains known to date to
trigger pandemics are type A strains (outbreaks worldwide). The signs of
the Spanish flu resembled those that everyone watches out for during flu
season. Nevertheless, more severe symptoms of the Spanish flu included:

 A sudden, and sometimes very high fever

(5)

4
 The Start
First Cases
On March 4, just before breakfast, US Army Private Albert Gitchell goes to
the hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas, complaining of sore throat, fever, and
headache—symptoms that are similar to those of a cold. After his initial
report of symptoms, more than 100 of his fellow troops did so, marking
what are thought to be the initial instances of the infamous influenza
epidemic of 1918, often known as the Spanish flu. In the end, the virus
would kill between 20 and 50 million people worldwide and 675,000
Americans, making it a much deadlier force than even the First World
War. Similar epidemics in army camps and jails around the nation occurred
after the original illness outbreak, which was discovered at Fort Riley in
March. The illness quickly spread to Europe as US soldiers headed to France
to support the Allies there. (Just 84,000 American soldiers crossed the Ocean
in March 1918; another 118,000 did so the following month.) The flu
continued to spread after reaching a second continent; 31,000 cases were
reported in Great Britain in June. Because of the false belief that Spain was
the pandemic’s epicenter, the illness eventually came to be known as the
Spanish flu. On November 11, the Great War came to an end, but influenza
continued to wreak devastation throughout the world, resurfacing in the
U.S. with the homecoming of soldiers from the war in an even more virulent
wave, infecting an estimated 28 percent of the population until it finally
petered out. The American Medical Society welcomed the conclusion of a
historic struggle in its issue of December 28, 1918, and urged readers to
embrace a fresh obstacle: the fight against infectious diseases.(6)

(1)
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Peak Times
“The rapid movement of soldiers around the globe was a major spreader
of the disease,” says James Harris, a historian at Ohio State University
who studies both infectious disease and World War I. “The entire military
industrial complex of moving lots of men and material in crowded
conditions was certainly a huge contributing factor in the ways the
pandemic spread.” From September through November of 1918, the death
rate from the Spanish flu skyrocketed. In the United States alone, 195,000
Americans died from the Spanish flu in just the month of October. And
unlike a normal seasonal flu, which mostly claims victims among the very
young and very old, the second wave of the Spanish flu exhibited what’s
called a “W curve”—high numbers of deaths among the young and old,
but also a huge spike in the middle composed of otherwise healthy 25- to
35-year-olds in the prime of their life. Not only was it shocking that
healthy young men and women were dying by the millions worldwide, but
it was also how they were dying. Struck with blistering fevers, nasal
hemorrhaging and pneumonia, the patients would drown in their own
fluid-filled lungs. Only decades later were scientists able to explain the
phenomenon now known as “cytokine storm.” When the human body is
being attacked by a virus, the immune system sends messenger proteins
called cytokines to promote helpful inflammation. But some strains of  the
flu, particularly the H1N1 strain responsible for the Spanish flu outbreak,
can trigger a dangerous immune overreaction in healthy individuals. In
those cases, the body is overloaded with cytokines leading to severe
inflammation and the fatal buildup of fluid in the lungs.(7)

(8)
 6

The Ending
Treatments
How did the Spanish flu get treated? Antibiotics were not available to treat
illnesses that patients contracted as side effects of the virus or to treat the
Spanish flu. Moreover, there were no intensive care units or mechanical
ventilation devices. How was it prevented? There were no widespread measures
in place to avoid the Spanish flu. Several localities did implement preventative
strategies that may resemble ones we use today. One of the measures was
isolation, or avoiding crowded places. This includes shuttering public spaces like
gyms and schools.
Washing your hands thoroughly and frequently.
Putting on safety gear, such as gloves and masks.
Without touching extra goods, such as books from the library.
Spitting out of sight.(9)

Effects
The Great Influenza Epidemic killed an estimated 40 million individuals, or 2.1
percent of the world's population. In 1918, 92 percent of the world's population
and an even greater portion of its Income were represented by the more than 40
countries whose mortality statistics the researchers are analyzing. The fatality
rate ranged from 0.3% in Australia, where a quarantine was instituted in 1918, to
5.8% in Kenya and 5.2 percent in India, which lost 16.7 million people over the
course of the pandemic's three-year duration. In the US, the flu claimed the lives
of 550,000 people, or 0.5% of the population. In Spain, 300,000 people passed
away, giving an average mortality rate of 1.4%.(10)
 7

Conclusion
In 1918, the Spanish flu had a terrible impact on the world. Around 21 million
people were killed by the tiny murderer as it made a full rotation of the earth in
just four months.

8
 Bibliography
(1) Search “Spanish Flu”
(2) https://www.paho.org/en/who-we-are/history-paho/purple-death-great-
flu1918#:~:text=Despite%20its%20name%2C%20researchers
%20believe,breeding%20ground%20for%20the%20virus.
(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/
(4) https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21777-spanish-flu#symptoms-
and-causes
(5) Search “causes and symptoms of the spanish flu”
(6) https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-cases-reported-in-deadly-
influenza-epidemic#:~:text=Just%20before%20breakfast%20on%20the,sore
%20throat%2C%20fever%20and%20headache.
(7) https://www.history.com/news/spanish-flu-second-wave-resurgence
(8) Search “peak times of the spanish flu”
(9) https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21777-spanish-flu#:~:text=How
%20was%20Spanish%20flu%20treated,and%20no%20intensive%20care
%20units.
(10) https://www.nber.org/digest/may20/social-and-economic-impacts-1918-
influenza-epidemic