Spanish flu
The Spanish Flu was the common name of an an unusually severe and deadly strain of Influenza spread world wide in 1918 and 1919, also known as the Great Influenza Pandemic. It is estimated to have been the most deadly Pandemic in human history, killing more people than the Black Plague or AIDS.
The nations of the Allied side of World War I called it the "Spanish Flu" from mistaken early reports that it originated in Spain; in Spain it was called "The French Flu".
According to some sources, the disease was first doccumented as appearing in However many infections with similar but milder symptoms began were recorded in spring of that year, with sore throat, headaches, dizzyness, and loss of appetite. The earliest know case Fort Riley, Kansas]] on March 11, 1918. In the summer infections became much more severe. The more deadly version was observed in August 1918 in three disparate locations - Brest, Boston and Freetown. The "Flu" often requiring hospitalization and even with the best of care often killing one third of those infected. The strain was unual in commonly killing many young and healthy victims, as opposed to more common influenzas which caused the bulk of their mortality amoung the old and infirm. People without symptoms could be stuck suddenly and be rendered too feeble to walk within hours; many would die the next day. Symptoms included a blue tint to the face and coughing up blood.
The disease spread across the world killing twenty-five million in the course of six months; some estimates put the total of those kiiled worldwide at over twice that number, possibly as high as 70 million. An estimated 17 million died in India alone. About 28% of the population of the USA suffered from the disease, and some 500,000 died from it. 200,000 were killed in England.
The Spanish Flu vanished within eighteen months, and the actual strain was never determined. The influenza virus was not understood by medical science at the time, and most contemporary effort was spent in an unsuccessful quest to find a germ borne cause of the disease.
