“The Influenza Pandemic of 1918” by Virginia Arneson
Chelsea House Publishers, Philadelphia, 2000, 120 pages, Grades 6-8.
When an outbreak of disease occurs in a local area, it is known as an epidemic. If the disease spreads over a larger area, such as a number of states or countries, it is called a pandemic. The Ebola Pandemic in western Africa is an example of this. Due to its widespread, deadly nature, Ebola is quickly emerging as a killer pandemic.
In western countries such as the United States, we feel comfortable and secure behind our well designed and advanced public health system. Historically, this complaisance can have disastrous consequences for the nation. The reason for this is that a pandemic usually strikes before the afflicted areas are even aware that they have been attacked.
When the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic explodes across the world, the United States Public Health Department is caught off guard. By the time some strategies begin to be developed, hundreds of thousands of people are afflicted with influenza. Virginia Aronson tells the painful and tragic history of this pandemic in her well written and photographed book, “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918.”
Fort Riley is an army base in Kansas, 185 miles south of Lincoln, Nebraska. In March of 1918, soldiers start coming down with the flu. At first, since people frequently get the flu, no one pays any serious attention to illness. But this isn’t just any flu. The young, healthy soldiers rapidly deteriorate and become critically ill. Whereas older people are frequently at risk of dying from the flu, these young men should not be this sick. Much to the doctors’ surprise, a number of these young soldiers die. Then more and more soldiers come down with the illness, and soon the base hospital is overflowing with critically sick soldiers.
But Fort Riley isn’t alone, as military bases across the United States begin reporting a flu pandemic. This isn’t just your five-days-and-get-better flu; often times the victims die, gasping for air and bleeding from their lungs.
As soldiers are shipped to France to fight in WWI, the influenza rapidly spreads across Europe and the rest of the world. Since France, England and the U.S.A. have tight censorship on newspaper reporting, the influenza pandemic is underreported. Spain however does not have this government censorship and publish extensive accounts of the pandemic in their country. Because they unwittingly publish what the influenza is doing in Spain, the rest of the world believe that the pandemic has originated there. Hence, they name the pandemic the Spanish Flu.
As the pandemic begins killing millions worldwide, scientists and laymen begin trying to explain the causes of the Spanish Flu and various treatment programs. Some physicians believed the patients need “good air” and place them in tents outside of cities.
Others believed the poison gas used in WWI had polluted the air causing the pandemic. One particularly zealous report proclaimed the Germans had created the influenza to win the war. Many actually believed this, notwithstanding the numerous German deaths from the Spanish Flu. Fear ruled the day.
What happened to the Spanish Flu and why did it end? Do we know the genetic structure of the Spanish Flu? Do the officials at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta fear another pandemic like the Spanish Flu? To find out the answers to these and other questions about the Spanish Flu, read Virginia Aronson’s fine book: “The Influenza Pandemic of 1918.”
As the Ebola Pandemic spreads in Africa, this book is quite useful in describing the reactions of people in the United States to the great Flu Pandemic of 1918. Forewarned is forearmed. I hope you encourage your middle school students to read this interesting account of the Spanish Flu.
