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MarkUK
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  • Register:12/11/2009 09:24:59

Date Posted:27/08/2018 07:58:46Copy HTML

One of the most overlooked features of the end of the First World War is the part played by the Spanish Flu outbreak. The pandemic began early in 1918, some say in an Army Camp in Kansas, but it seems likely that it had its origins in China in late 1917 and spread to the USA and Europe via Chinese labourers.

It is called Spanish Flu because most countries, especially those at war, tried to suppress reports of the severity of the crisis, but Spain, which was neutral, reported the effects in full thus giving the impression that it had originated in Spain.

Every part of the globe was affected, but in the summer of 1918 it was particularly bad in the ranks of the German Army thus it became a factor in the collapse of the German war effort. Among the allied armies it reached its peak in the weeks immediately after the Armistice and well into 1919.

On a local level for me the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery on Cannock Chase contains the graves of many troops from New Zealand who died in the winter 1918/19, all from flu. Some never saw action but died thousands of miles from home from an unseen killer.

You're playing chess with Fate and Fate's winning. Arnold Bennett
PBA-3rd-1949 Share to: Facebook Twitter MSN linkedin google yahoo #1
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  • Register:09/01/2009 05:32:37

Re:Spanish Flu

Date Posted:27/08/2018 06:14:13Copy HTML

The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as: Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.[1] It infected 500 million people around the world,[2] including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world's population),[3] making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6]

Disease had already greatly limited life expectancy in the early 20th century. In the first year of the pandemic, life expectancy in the United States dropped by about 12 years.[7][8][9] Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill juvenile, elderly, or already weakened patients; in contrast, the 1918 pandemic predominantly killed previously healthy young adults.[10]

There are several possible explanations for the high mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some research suggests that the specific variant of the virus had an unusually aggressive nature. One group of researchers recovered the virus from the bodies of frozen victims, and found that transfection in animals caused a rapid progressive respiratory failure and death through a cytokine storm (overreaction of the body's immune system). It was then postulated that the strong immune reactions of young adults ravaged the body, whereas the weaker immune systems of children and middle-aged adults resulted in fewer deaths among those groups.[11]

More recent investigations, mainly based on original medical reports from the period of the pandemic,[12][13] found that the viral infection itself was not more aggressive than any previous influenza, but that the special circumstances (malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, poor hygiene) promoted bacterial superinfection that killed most of the victims typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.[14][15]

Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the pandemic's geographic origin.[2] It was implicated in the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s.[16]

To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.[17][18] Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII).[19] This created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit,[20] thereby giving rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish Flu".[21]


MarkUK Share to: Facebook Twitter MSN linkedin google yahoo #2
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Re:Spanish Flu

Date Posted:28/08/2018 06:11:22Copy HTML

Some notable figures who died during the 1918-20 Spanish flu pandemic -

Rodrigues Alves, President of Brazil 1902-06, he had been elected for a second term but died before he could take office.

Louis Botha, first Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, died in office.

Brothers Horace and John Dodge, co-founders of the Dodge Motor Co.

Sir Hubert Parry, English composer, wrote the music for William Blake's poem Jerusalem and composed the processional music for Edward VII's coronation.

Edmond Rostand, French dramatist, author of the play Cyrano de Bergerac.

William Leefe Robinson, Army aviator who won the VC for being the first to shoot down a Zeppelin.

You're playing chess with Fate and Fate's winning. Arnold Bennett
majorshrapnel Share to: Facebook Twitter MSN linkedin google yahoo #3
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  • Register:20/12/2008 12:28:28

Re:Spanish Flu

Date Posted:28/08/2018 06:33:49Copy HTML

It's what we would call in today's PC obsessed WESTERN world, an equal opportunity murderer.

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