SPANISH FLU EPIDEMIC OF 1918 While the allied armies of the First World War were only six weeks away from victory in the trenches of Europe, an unknown virus called the Spanish flu slayed hundreds of thousands of Americans in a few autumn weeks in 1918. The mysterious killer, which was far deadlier than any weapons of war and never identified by medical scientists of that day, killed by some estimates between twenty and fifty million people worldwide. And as suddenly as it appeared it disappeared. The Spanish flu was so named because it was believed to have originated in Spain and because a similar epidemic had occurred in Spain and Europe in 1889–90. Some believed that the epidemic came from the Orient because the Germans mentioned the disease occurring along the eastern front in the summer and fall of 1917. Some investigators say the influenza came to America on a Scandinavian steamer that arrived at an Atlantic port with two hundred cases on board. Still others say it came into this country on a Coast Guard cutter returning from convoy duty. However it got here, it spread incredibly fast and over vast distances. The first major outbreak apparently struck first at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, Kansas, in March of 1918. Through the spring and summer it did little damage. But when autumn came it returned with a vengeance. It ravaged army camps, cities and villages all over the nation. The flu began with a high fever and aching bones. Many cases developed into pneumonia after about three days. The lungs of victims would fill with fluid, causing death. In North Carolina it appears that the Spanish flu was first misdiagnosed as typhoid fever. Nothing is found in the newspapers on the subject, except the alarming growth rate of typhoid fever in the state. No alarm for precaution of the flu was given in the newspapers until late September 1918. By then it had already begun its ravages on the populace. The first notice of the epidemic in Greenville occurred on October 5, 1918, when Mayor Albion Dunn made a proclamation in the interest of public health. By order of the city alderman, Mayor Dunn closed “all places of public assembly, including moving picture theaters, schools, churches, and Sunday schools” until the state of public health warranted the suspension of the order. On October 9, one of the few doctors in town told the local newspaper that there were at least 250 cases of the influenza in the city and at the East Carolina Teachers College. While most of the patients were getting along well and no deaths were reported, some were quite sick, among them being Charles S. Forbes, Hinton Best, H.L. Allen, Samuel T. White and S.G. Wilkerson. Because people were still going about their business and basically ignoring the mayor’s proclamation, Mayor Dunn as the secretary of the Pitt County Board of Health ordered everything closed by order of the Board of Health. This quarantine order included factories, warehouses, schools, churches, theaters and all places where crowds were accustomed to assemble. This order went into effect on October 9 and any violator would be fined fifty dollars or imprisoned for thirty days. All persons were requested not to congregate or gather on the streets or corners and that the sheriff, constables and officers were to rigidly enforce this order. The local newspaper complained that the order hadn’t closed the courts, which were a dangerous breeding ground of flu and that the corners of Fourth and Evans and Five Points were still crowded with all classes of idlers. By October 15, 1918, the Pitt County Board of Health announced its plans to combat the epidemic. Since most of the doctors in the county were off at war, each community had to take care of itself the best way it could. The executive board of the local Red Cross was expected to take charge in each township. Each township was to have several committees, including an intelligence committee, nursing committee, finance committee and transportation committee. The intelligence committee was to take a daily note of the needs of every patient and make a daily report to the local Red Cross chairman. The nursing committee was to list and distribute every available person who would be willing to care for the sick and to inform patients and their families of the most elementary preventatives and remedies. The finance committee was to list the names of persons willing to contribute money for necessary relief. The transportation committee was to get cars or some other conveyances to distribute food, nurses and other essentials to the patients. Each township organization was organized on October 16. Because whole families were stricken and there was no hospital, on October 17 the Red Cross opened an emergency hospital in the county courthouse. The hospital opened with seven patients and the nurses the first night were Miss Maude Lee and Mrs. Marletta Dixon. On October 18, a soup kitchen was opened in the Greenville High School under the supervision of Miss Clara Carroll and Mrs. Travis Hooker, and assisted by the high school domestic science students. The first day they carried soup and broth to seventy black and white sufferers all over town. By October 30, 1918, Dr. C.T. Fryer, Pitt County health officer, reported the flu in Greenville was on the wane, but the county was reported to still have a number of serious cases. It is remembered that people needing help in the country would put a cloth on their mail box and the mailman knew that the family needed help and would notify someone. How many all told in Pitt County died from the flu is unknown, but looking at the death certificates it appears the number could reach three hundred. The quarantine was lifted on November 5, 1918, with the opening of the Tobacco Market. The influenza had paralyzed businesses and set back all kinds of enterprises. But it left as quickly as it came. The Spanish flu struck every country in the world, sparing only the island of St. Helena and Mauritius Island in the Indian Ocean. India’s death toll was more than 1.5 million. The Dutch West Indies was nearly a million and the United States had nearly 600,000. The continent of North America suffered a death toll of nearly 1.1 million. It is unknown what the death toll was in Europe, Russia and China. And where it went remains a medical mystery. In 1951, a medical team led by Dr. Albert P. McKee of Iowa State University journeyed to Alaska. There they exhumed the bodies of several flu victims preserved in the frozen tundra. Lung sections were packed in ice and sent back to Iowa City in an effort to recover the virus and infect laboratory animals. But the virus could not be recovered, thus blocking efforts to isolate and identify it and possibly prevent another visitation. The outbreak of the Asian flu epidemic or “Hong Kong Flu” in 1968–69 may be remembered as not being as deadly as the Spanish flu epidemic, but it too effected people worldwide. _________________________________________________________________ Rediscover Hotmail®: Get quick friend updates right in your inbox. http://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Rediscover_Updates1_042009