<<<In a message dated 16/04/2004 23:36:51 GMT Daylight Time, ADRABBOTT@aol.com writes: during the notorious epidemic which appears to have been anywhere from 1916 to 1920>>>> The Spanish Influenza Pandemic was from 1917-1919. The British Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919 occurred in three waves. The first wave of what was called 'Spanish flu' reached England in June 1918, but most deaths occurred in the autumn of 1918, during the second wave, when approximately 200,000 people died in England and Wales, fewer British people died in the third wave of early 1919. Different viral strains were probably responsible for each separate wave, explaining the variations in severity each time, although this is not certain. As Karen states Influenza causes death in the majority of cases in a 'typical' epidemic through virulent infection that leads to pneumonia. Perhaps 10% of the deaths in Britain in the autumn 1918 wave were due to a particularly severe pneumonia that would develop suddenly, killing its victims-of all ages-within 48 hours or less. His death in August 1922 seems to be nearly four years after the last wave, so it does not seem likely to have had anything to do with the 'Spanish flu' epidemic. You say that the cause of death was "Acute pneumococcal meningitis", there was an Encephalitis epidemic in Britain 1919-1931. Meningitis is a relatively rare infection that affects the delicate membranes -- called meninges -- that cover the brain and spinal cord. Encephalitis is a disease of the nervous system, and apparently because physicians in England had no clinical experience of the disease it was mistaken at first for botulism, which is a bacterial infection.… Regards Stan Mapstone