Pam June 13th, 2007
Ever since the uproar surrounding the Andrew Speaker tuberculosis case, I’ve been thinking about how much worse the 1918 pandemic might have been if people then had traveled with the same ease as we do today. Think of all the flights that could have criss-crossed the country, and even the world. Thousands more might have died. Some people, already infected, most likely would have died en route to their destinations.
In her autobiography, the writer Mary McCarthy describes the horrifying experience of traveling by train as a child, when her mother and father were stricken with influenza. The conductor threatened to put the whole family off the train. Later, both parents died of the flu. Ms. McCarthy and her brothers were left in the care of cruel and neglectful relatives, their early childhood marked forever by this tragedy.
The Great War, with its relentless demand for soldiers, also contributed to the contagion. Troop movements across Europe and the U.S. carried the disease from town to town, city to city, and port to port. How many lives might have been spared had it been peacetime?
Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, by Mary McCarthy, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1985.
Tags: Influenza, Pandemic of 1918, Spanish Flu
Pam May 9th, 2007
Something that has puzzled scientists about the 1918 pandemic is that nearly half the deaths were in young adults. Most often, those most vulnerable to death from influenza are the eldest and youngest, the weakest members of society, in other words. Mortality curves for the flu usually are “U” shaped, with the peaks occurring in the very young and very old, and the fewest deaths in between. The mortality curve for the 1918 pandemic is “W” shaped, with a third peak for those in the 20-40 age bracket, a pattern unique to this pandemic.
The “excess death” toll, that is, deaths that occurred over and above expected causes, largely resulted from influenza in 1918. And the young and healthy accounted for a disproportionate number of “excess deaths.”
Imagine the fear and foreboding felt when so many civilians, soldiers, and young parents were falling sick and dying. In my book Pandemic! I’ve tried to give the reader a sense of what it felt like to be a survivor. How did those who lived rebuild their lives and go on in the face of such tragedy and loss?
To find out more about why the Spanish flu killed so many young people, click on the CDC link to read “1918 Influenza: the Mother of All Pandemics”, by Jeffery K. Taubenberger and David M. Morens.
Tags: Influenza, Pandemic of 1918, Spanish Flu
Pam April 26th, 2007
For the past 3 years or so, I’ve been working on a book called Pandemic! (The exclamation point is part of the title.) It’s YA historical fiction about the influenza pandemic of 1918. To be more specific, it’s about a teenaged girl, orphaned during the pandemic, who struggles to re-build her life in the face of financial ruin and a sexually abusive uncle.
Because this lethal form of influenza (commonly called Spanish flu) struck during the Great War (WWI), it’s been, until recently, largely forgotten. At last, due to historians like John Barry and Alfred Crosby, it’s receiving more attention. Also, with diseases such as SARS and Avian flu now posing a threat, there’s a renewed scientific interest. What lessons can be learned from studying this worldwide outbreak of flu from 1918? What knowledge might be gained that could help in stemming future epidemic/pandemics?
Here are two important books about the pandemic:
- The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, by John Barry. Viking Penguin, 2004.
- America’s Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, by Alfred W. Crosby. 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2003.
I’ll be sharing more facts about the pandemic of 1918 in future posts. And also, more about my book.
Tags: Influenza, Pandemic of 1918, Spanish Flu
