The 1918 Influenza Pandemic

The 18th century had been a world of unknown scientific and medical exploration. Across the globe, many kingdoms and countries had faced a similar complication that baffled even the most educated physicians and politicians. Every summer civilians would meet with their local doctors and grumble about their bodily issues, but each doctor had discovered the same symptoms. On August 3, 1793 the city of Philadelphia had a devastating disease lurking in the streets and alleyways. Jim Murphy, an American author of “An American Plague”, is an author to more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books for children and young adults, also winning multiple awards for his accurate and such accomplished work. The variety of subjects in history to choose from had

Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: the great smallpox epidemic of 1775-82, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001). Pages, ix, 384, index, bibliography. Review by Samantha Pilcher. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the author of Pox Americana.

Wright 5 Jayla WrightJared DiamondEnglish 428 February 2018 The Epidemic of SmallPox One of the most scariest diseases, if not the scariest disease, was smallpox. Smallpox was a game change in the 1500’s.

The Death Machine Within two years, it killed 50 million people worldwide. It hindered the lives of 500 million throughout the world, and 675,000 lay dead from this in the United States alone. This killer became known as the Spanish Influenza. The Spanish Influenza struck at the perfect time, on the tail end of World War I. With soldiers densely populated in bunkers, the flu spread like wildfire, especially when it arrived in the United States of America. The Spanish Influenza was a stone-cold killer.

“Plague in Central America,” by Arana Xajila, in the years of 1519-1560 talks about a deadly plague that derives from Europe to Mesoamerica (Central America) and spreads throughout Central America. This plague had spread to the people of Central America when their tribe, Cakchiquels, were fighting against the Spaniards. The Spaniards that were fighting in the tribe had passed on this deadly plague to the Cakchiquels tribe who then passed it on to others in Central America. This plague can be known as the influenza (flu). This deadly virus was spreading rapidly and soon everyone in Central America were affected.

Task 2 C228 V2 Breanna Bras Western Governors University An example of a communicable disease outbreak that crossed international borders is the H1N1 influenza virus, also known as “swine flu”. The H1N1 flu outbreak was originally discovered in April 2009. The first known occurrence originated in Mexico and then was detected in the United States soon after. By May 2009, the H1N1 flu virus was confirmed to have spread to a total of 39 countries including: Spain, United Kingdom, Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, China, France, Korea, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, Germany, Argentina, El Salvador, Belgium, Denmark, Australia, Peru, Norway, India, Austria, Thailand Cuba, Sweden, Portugal, Ecuador, Finland, Guatemala, Israel, Malaysia, Netherlands, Turkey and Poland ("Latest news on swine flu", 2009).

In the US, up to 64 million people are infected with influenza every year with 51 thousand cases resulting in death. (Treanor) The fever, runny nose, and body aches keep Americans curled up in their bed, miserable, all week. You try to do everything you can to isolate yourself from the virus, but somehow it always finds a way to get you sick. It seems like it is the same routine every year of taking days off work or completing make up work for school. Records of influenza symptoms date back thousands of years, with many massive outbreaks such as the 1918 Spanish flu and the 2009 Swine flu pandemic along the way. Scientists have been searching for a cure for years, but even through modern medicine, the fight against influenza continues. The structure, replication process, and limitations on modern medicine are just a few factors that keep influenza spreading across the world every year.

One of the biggest summer nuisance would be the mosquito, but more specifically the Ades aegypti mosquito. The Aedes aegypti is the vector for yellow fever and the cause of the numerous deaths. In her book The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic the Shaped Our History, Molly Caldwell Crosby presents the idea that the mosquito is not just the only reason an epidemic occurred in the 18th century. This story accounts for the disease that broke out across the world and nearly destroyed almost all of North America’s population, which some believe could have been avoided by simple quarantine analysis and sanitary methods.

“In the late 1800 and early 1900's, infectious diseases were the most serious threat to health and well being.” Until the late 1900’s the leading cause of death was communicable diseases. As doctors gain more knowledge about medicine the death rate of those disease has substantially decreased. The three main illnesses of the 1800’s-1900’s were scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and chicken pox, yet a positive outcome from these horrendous sicknesses were antibiotics, remedies, and vaccines. Scarlet Fever was one of the many illnesses in the 1800’s.

When the Spanish Flu appeared in Chicago, peaking at 2000 deaths a day, health commissioner John Dill Robertson decided to make some drastic decisions. First, all large gatherings were banned, sporting events; political meetings and banquets were all cancelled. Schools were shut down and parks were closed. Theaters and cabarets were closed as well. Weddings were postponed and funerals were cancelled.

As their next-door-neighbors begin dying, two men are driven to action: Reverend Henry Whitehead, whose faith in a benevolent God is great, and Dr. John Snow, whose beliefs about contagion have been rejected by the scientific community, but who is convinced that he knows how the disease is had spread. “The Ghost Map” records the

The first outbreak occurred in September of 1918 in Quebec. 2. In the fall of 1919, the federal government established the Department of Health. 3. Approximately 50,000 people died from this silent enemy as opposed to 40,000 in the war.

They believed that epidemic diseases were caused by “miasmas” or “viruses”, which they considered to be poison that float through the air. This misconception of diseases impacted the war negatively due to the fact that medicine did not reach a stage to provide certain insights of diseases. There were many infectious diseases that were common among the soldiers which included, “typhoid and other fevers, smallpox, acute and chronic diarrhea, yellow fever, measles, mumps, diphtheria, scarlet fever, erysipelas and the intermittent fevers.” These diseases gave a foul stench, according to Bollet “it was said that the Civil war army on March could be smelled before it could be seen.” Most of the stench came from the bacteria and virus causing diseases.

Due October 19th, 2015 Erin Gibbs: 200270053 Dr. Andrew Cameron Bio 222 Written Assignment 1 1. Health officials realized that the mysterious illness was not caused by a bacterium because the pathogen would be identified quickly in comparison to a virus, which is more complicated (CBC, 2013). 2. It was hard to identify the infectious agent because SARS presented as flu-like symptoms with a rapid onset and is similar to the common flu (CBC, 2013). People who had other underlying health problems made it difficult to identify symptoms of SARS because it made it hard to differentiate (CDC, 2013).

All kinds of diseases spread throughout the villages like wildfires and the rare few who weren’t affected not only had to fear for those they knew who were sick, but also for themselves and the possibility of them catching any one of the many diseases drifting around. The dilemma of feeling the need to care for their family and friends who were ill but also being nervous of that result in them falling victim to the deadly illnesses as well was an overwhelming fear that circulated the minds of many citizens. All in all, any survivors during the Europeans’ invasion into the Americas were