There's a new video out by PBS Home Video, based upon a show they did. There is also an accompanying book. The title of each is "Influenza 1918."

It is a sobering story recounting the worst epidemic in America's history. Over 400,000 deaths, equivalent to a million and a half proportioned to today's population. Ask around the elders in your own family-- chances are very good that members of your own family died in 1918.

Thing is, government officials knew about it, but were in denail until too late. In New York City, officials scoffed that it could not happen here. Somehow New Yorkers were too sharp.

In the press, news of WWI dominated. Despite widespread symptoms in Phildaelphia, public events were still actively promoted, such as doughboy parades bringing hundreds of thousands potential hosts together, and sure enough, symptoms soared immediately afterward.

Families were devastated. People could be well in the morning, dead by nightfall. Multiple children in the family might die. People didn't know how, or why.

The difference is, this was unforeseen. Nobody could have anticipated a new strain of bug that would compound a previously 'benign' disease.

-- Scarecrow (Somewhere@over.rainbow), November 27, 1999

Answers

My grandmother died in Denver in 1918 from the influenza with my dad a three-year old. His father was unable to care for him and sent him to the Midwest to be raised by his sister-in-law. Eventually, my dad lost touch with his father. To say it affected his life (and, as you point out, the lives of millions) is an understatement.

Thanks for the sobering post.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 27, 1999.

As a child my uncle, who lived in rural central Texas, took us to a graveyard where there were hundreds of graves of small children (and this from a rural area) the graves were dated from 1918-1922.

I don't really recall exactly what the lesson was for us...other than to realize our finite mortality as humans...it was an unusual excursion as my uncle was prone to light-hearted story telling and unusually fun ways of getting his points across.

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), November 27, 1999.

Whoops!...and did anyone mention that the a CDC-sponsored Canadian- led team recovered tissue samples last year from a small number of preserved victims' corpses up on Svarlbard island, north of the Arctic Circle, in Norway.

I shared information and backgrounders from our voluminous files on this with two reporters, one from THE TORONTO STAR and one from THE GLOBE AND MAIL, encouraging them to track this. Both papers ran informative stories which strangely ceased after I pointed out that the recovered samples were headed for Fort Detrick [think US army biological warfare centre now 'transferred' to the CDC] and its British equivalent...

More recent stories indicated that the DNA appears to be intact in the recovered samples [I'm working from memory, as our big data computer is doing a massive re-index right now].

As a member of the original recovery team said: "God help us if this gets loose among the general population!"

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 27, 1999.

Back in the 70's there were plans to introduce "pacification agents" into the food and water supplies in the Cities. Fortunately, there was an amazing, successful raid that took out the leadership of various groups like the SDS and the Weather Underground (never heard about THAT one, did you?) a few days before a planned insurrection-or we might be living with about a 20% smaller population. And needless to say, probably still under a declared state of emergency. Could it happen again? Here? With our government? Nawwww...

-- chairborne commando (what-me-worry@armageddon.com), November 27, 1999.

Interesting, thanks for recounting this....

Leslie Garret wrote an interesting and frightening book called "The Coming Plague" which recounts much of the struggles with various infectious agents through out the years. Highly reccomended. She goes on to explain the nature of the man/virus/bacterial world we live in and why we are losing the war. This gal is no kook, she did superb reserch and her earlier report on ebola won her a Pulitzer. If you want a good grounding in epidemiology read this.

We came damn close to a modern day meltdown in Reston, VA when an airborne strain of SHF (simean hemoragic fever) broke out in a monkey isolation facility there. This bug tested positive for all the tests which would normally indicate ebola ziare but it was airborne. Luckily even infected humans who tested positive never developed sympoms. A close one though...

DCK

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), November 27, 1999.

My mom, who'll be 87 soon, remembers lying in bed as a little girl along side her mother for days, both of them shaking terribly of the l9l8 flu fever. They both survived. My dad, who'll be 86, lost 2 members of his household in a couple of days, and these men were strong, fit Italian laborers in the prime of life. Life in the old days was rough: mom got polio a couple of years after the flu. Medical treatment was basically this: stick the sick in the sick room and wait to see if they recover. My parents' generation possess immune systems that are "ready" for y2k. We baby boomers,however, are in trouble.....

-- Tishaminga (steverromano@aol.com), November 27, 1999.

Hey, Don, thanks for recommending "THE COMING PLAGUE." I have a copy in our research library, but hadn't yet looked at it. I note with interest that the subtitle is "Newly Emerging Diseases In A World Out Of Balance" - spooky, when one thinks of Y2K and the 1918 flu!

At 750 pages, it's gonna have to go on my New Year's reading list, though...:)

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 27, 1999.