Salyards- Flu Epidemic of 1918

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   The Flu Epidemic of 1918
by Dr. Harry E. Salyards
1998 marked the 80th anniversary of the worst epidemic of infectious disease ever to strike Adams County�the so-called �Spanish Influenza� of 1918. The story of the spread of that infection is inextricably involved with the history of World War I; without the massive, worldwide troop movements of that last summer and fall of the Great War, the disease could never have spread from the world�s great port cities to rural areas such as Adams County with such devastating speed. Nor were military authorities innocent of complicity in this spread, as they put the war effort ahead of everything else�including public health concerns�and tried to divert responsibility for the epidemic to the enemy, as we shall see. Even Hastings was not free of bickering and finger-pointing among public officials, as they sought to deal with the crisis�always endeavoring to walk the fine line between precaution and panic.
The first factor in the epidemic was, of course, the influenza virus itself. Over time, that particular virus has shown an amazing ability to modify its outer protein �coat,� so that antibodies produced in response to infection by the virus (or a flu shot) last year, or the year before, are useless against it. On a number of occasions over the last century, these �antigenic shifts,� as specialists in immunology call them, have been particularly drastic�resulting in peaks of epidemic influenza The 1918 outbreak was simply the worst of these. And we need to exonerate Spain of any responsibility. 
As non-combatants in World War I, they lacked military censorship. Therefore, when reports of influenza started coming out of Spain in the summer of 1918, the rest of the western world quickly labeled it the �Spanish Influenza.� The undisclosed facts were, influenza was epidemic in American army camps in March and April of 1918. There were many secondary cases of pneumonia, killing a high proportion of these previously-healthy young men. 

The disease was then �exported� back to Europe, among the 865,000 United States soldiers who crossed to England and France in the summer of 1918. There were 700 influenza deaths in London alone, in July of 1918! Surely, something big was brewing �over there.� And as the discharged soldiers came home, they brought it back. Flu cases were diagnosed among servicemen stationed in Philadelphia in July, and among those in barracks in New York and Boston by late August.

Here....

http://www.adamshistory.org/flu1918.html

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	The Flu Epidemic of 1918 by Dr. Harry E. Salyards 1998 marked the 80th anniversary of the worst epidemic of infectious disease ever to strike Adams County�the so-called �Spanish Influenza� of 1918. The story of the spread of that infection is inextricably involved with the history of World War I; without the massive, worldwide troop movements of that last summer and fall of the Great War, the disease could never have spread from the world�s great port cities to rural areas such as Adams County with such devastating speed. Nor were military authorities innocent of complicity in this spread, as they put the war effort ahead of everything else�including public health concerns�and tried to divert responsibility for the epidemic to the enemy, as we shall see. Even Hastings was not free of bickering and finger-pointing among public officials, as they sought to deal with the crisis�always endeavoring to walk the fine line between precaution and panic. The first factor in the epidemic was, of course, the influenza virus itself. Over time, that particular virus has shown an amazing ability to modify its outer protein �coat,� so that antibodies produced in response to infection by the virus (or a flu shot) last year, or the year before, are useless against it. On a number of occasions over the last century, these �antigenic shifts,� as specialists in immunology call them, have been particularly drastic�resulting in peaks of epidemic influenza The 1918 outbreak was simply the worst of these. And we need to exonerate Spain of any responsibility. As non-combatants in World War I, they lacked military censorship. Therefore, when reports of influenza started coming out of Spain in the summer of 1918, the rest of the western world quickly labeled it the �Spanish Influenza.� The undisclosed facts were, influenza was epidemic in American army camps in March and April of 1918. There were many secondary cases of pneumonia, killing a high proportion of these previously-healthy young men. The disease was then �exported� back to Europe, among the 865,000 United States soldiers who crossed to England and France in the summer of 1918. There were 700 influenza deaths in London alone, in July of 1918! Surely, something big was brewing �over there.� And as the discharged soldiers came home, they brought it back. Flu cases were diagnosed among servicemen stationed in Philadelphia in July, and among those in barracks in New York and Boston by late August. Here.... http://www.adamshistory.org/flu1918.html