1918 Influenza Pandemic

"When we think of plagues, we think of AIDS, Ebola, anthrax spores, and, of course, the Black Death. But in 1918 the Great Flu Epidemic killed an estimated 40 million people virtually overnight. If such a plague returned today, taking a comparable percentage of the U.S. population with it, 1.5 million Americans would die."(source)

"In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected."(source)

"As the world's peoples were celabrating the end of war, the end of dying, and a fresh beginning, the second and most virulent of three waves of a new killer, 'Spanish Influenza', rages with freocity greater than all the killing power of the previous four years of war, killing tens of millions."(source)

"In the ten months between September 1918 and June 1919, 675,000 Americans died of influenza and pneumonia. When compared to the number of Americans killed in combat in World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined- 423,000- it becomes apparent that the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 was far more deadly than the war which it accompanied. (Crosby, 206-207) The United States and the rest of the world had been exposed to such epidemics in the past, but never at such a severe cost in human life."(source)

"If you had lived in the early twentieth century, your life expectancy would have been much shorter than it is today. Today, life expectancy for men is 75 years; for women, it is 80 years. In 1918, life expectancy for men was only 53 years. Women’s life expectancy at 54 was only marginally better."(source)

"The plague did not discriminate. It was rampant in urban and rural areas, from the densely populated East coast to the remotest parts of Alaska. Young adults, usually unaffected by these types of infectious diseases, were among the hardest hit groups along with the elderly and young children. The flu afflicted over 25 percent of the U.S. population. In one year, the average life expectancy in the United States dropped by 12 years"(source)


"The impact of this pandemic was not limited to 1918–1919. All influenza A pandemics since that time, and indeed almost all cases of influenza A worldwide (excepting human infections from avian viruses such as H5N1 and H7N7), have been caused by descendants of the 1918 virus, including "drifted" H1N1 viruses and reassorted H2N2 and H3N2 viruses. The latter are composed of key genes from the 1918 virus, updated by subsequently incorporated avian influenza genes that code for novel surface proteins, making the 1918 virus indeed the "mother" of all pandemics."(source)

"Overall the United States was the least affected with some 675,000 deaths. The biological origins of the flu may have been from birds, transmitted to pigs, and as it mutated to humans. It was the most devastating epidemic in recorded history and depressed life expectancy in the United States by ten years. With the close of the war in Europe and the transition to the roaring twenties those who survived tried to move on. The impact was hard to measure at the time but the destabilization in Spain with the death of the King was the precursor to events that would contribute to the unthinkable Second Great War."(source)

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