1918 Spanish Fly

[golfnut69]

watching "Sunday Morning' today and a good exapmle of why it was important for University of Louisiana to become Tulane University and it's studies of tropical and air borne diseases of the time. A Tulane Prof was interviewed.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resour ... -h1n1.html

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resour ... istory.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

[DfromCT]

LOL, 'nut I assume your thread title was a typo as the "y" and "u" keys are next to one another.

Check your PM's, 'nut. MBA, check yours too! I just saw that a response I sent you back in early Feb was never opened!

[GreenLantern]

The 1918 Spanish influenza epidemic must have been far beyond what we are experiencing now. Imagine such an outbreak with news networks contributing to the panic with non-stop coverage about the number of infections and mortality rates.

In 1953, the polio epidemic was raging. Poliomyelitis was a highly contagious disease caused by a viral infection that attacked the central nervous system. The origin was unknown and there was no cure. The rumored causes of the disease included unsanitary conditions, rats, raw vegetables, atmospheric spread, and even God's wrath. Imagine the corona virus panic with little science, no CDC, no hand sanitizer, and twice the fear. The most frequent victims were children under the age of 7. Hospitals had isolated wards filled to overflowing with children, many being kept alive by 'iron lungs', large metallic full-body enclosures which 'breathed' for the small victims. One particular strain of polio was a certain death sentence. Obviously, parents were panicked for their families.

In the small town in northwestern Louisiana where I grew up, I was the first and only child to contract the disease. I was in the second grade at the time and the entire school was gripped with fear after my diagnosis. The principal had my books and my desk burned. I lived with my grandparents and there was a few days of waiting until I could be admitted to a Shreveport hospital. In the meantime, my fever raged at 104 and the only thing my grandmother could do to give me comfort was to try and cool my body with isopropyl alcohol baths. I recall her sleepless nights at my bedside attempting to give me relief from the fever. A nearby neighbor who was well aware of my disease, came to her aid doing anything she could to help. Do you imagine there are many people today who would come to the aid of a neighbor with a sick child knowing they were infected with the corona virus? There was a different breed of people back then.

The moral of the story is that this too shall pass. In the meantime, be patient, avoid panicking and make smart decisions. Pray a bit. If you recognize no God, then you should at least attempt kindness and a be a bit empathetic to others.

Oh, and thank God for science and selfless folks like Jonas Salk who developed a cure for polio. Dr. Salk refused to benefit financially from his vaccine and insisted that it was the moral responsibility of all nations to provide free access of the drug to all children. Once again, there was a different breed of people then.

[winwave]

Thanks for sharing that. Glad it worked out for you.

[golfnut69]

I remember taking my "salk vaccine" ..it was a pink dot on a Domino's sugar cube

[DfromCT]

GL....what a story! Thank you for sharing all of that, and I'm very happy you lived in a time and community that rallied for you. It's hard to say that many would do that today, especially where I live! I would, without a doubt expose myself to the virus if it were to help one of my own children, or one of my friends kids. But I am not sure I would risk my life (and not being there for my kids) for a random neighbor. Tough call.

I think the media has blown the Coronovirus out of proportion. I read an article yesterday predicting 1/3 of the worlds population would be infected, and 20% of those would die from Coronovirus. The stats are WAY less fear inducing:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

In fact, this has yet to prove more lethal than the yearly flu.

'nut...was that a true vaccine, or something you took before a Grateful Dead show??

[HoustonWave]

I've read many books about the 1918 flu, it was incredibly virulent. There were many cases where somebody would wake up feeling fine, develop a sneeze and then cough by late morning, a headache, fever, and body aches by early afternoon, lung and breathing difficulties by evening, and be dead before midnight. Literally, fine to dead in less than 24 hours. The world dodged another potentially devastating pandemic in 2003 when the Avian H5N1 flu jumped from some birds and chickens to people. Fortunately it was never able to transmit from human to human which kept it from becoming a pandemic, a good thing since the mortality rate was around 70%--talk about panic in the streets.

[HoustonWave]

GL....what a story! Thank you for sharing all of that, and I'm very happy you lived in a time and community that rallied for you. It's hard to say that many would do that today, especially where I live! I would, without a doubt expose myself to the virus if it were to help one of my own children, or one of my friends kids. But I am not sure I would risk my life (and not being there for my kids) for a random neighbor. Tough call.

I think the media has blown the Coronovirus out of proportion. I read an article yesterday predicting 1/3 of the worlds population would be infected, and 20% of those would die from Coronovirus. The stats are WAY less fear inducing:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

In fact, this has yet to prove more lethal than the yearly flu.

'nut...was that a true vaccine, or something you took before a Grateful Dead show??

No doubt the media and politicians have played chicken little with Covid-19. Rather than destroying the economy, maybe we should just let it run its course. It has a long way to catch this season's two flu variants that have killed over 18,000 so far in the U.S.

[golfnut69]

I've read many books about the 1918 flu, it was incredibly virulent. There were many cases where somebody would wake up feeling fine, develop a sneeze and then cough by late morning, a headache, fever, and body aches by early afternoon, lung and breathing difficulties by evening, and be dead before midnight. Literally, fine to dead in less than 24 hours. The world dodged another potentially devastating pandemic in 2003 when the Avian H5N1 flu jumped from some birds and chickens to people. Fortunately it was never able to transmit from human to human which kept it from becoming a pandemic, a good thing since the mortality rate was around 70%--talk about panic in the streets.

one of the maor issues of the 1918 flu was World War 1 and troops going to and from between Europe back to America

[HoustonWave]

I've read many books about the 1918 flu, it was incredibly virulent. There were many cases where somebody would wake up feeling fine, develop a sneeze and then cough by late morning, a headache, fever, and body aches by early afternoon, lung and breathing difficulties by evening, and be dead before midnight. Literally, fine to dead in less than 24 hours. The world dodged another potentially devastating pandemic in 2003 when the Avian H5N1 flu jumped from some birds and chickens to people. Fortunately it was never able to transmit from human to human which kept it from becoming a pandemic, a good thing since the mortality rate was around 70%--talk about panic in the streets.

one of the maor issues of the 1918 flu was World War 1 and troops going to and from between Europe back to America

No doubt. Many believe that it may have actually started at Ft. Hayes, Kansas.

[HoustonWave]

LOL, 'nut I assume your thread title was a typo as the "y" and "u" keys are next to one another.

Check your PM's, 'nut. MBA, check yours too! I just saw that a response I sent you back in early Feb was never opened!

Maybe there was also an outbreak of sex in 1918, but I guess it was overshadowed by the Great Influenza.

[winwave]

GL....what a story! Thank you for sharing all of that, and I'm very happy you lived in a time and community that rallied for you. It's hard to say that many would do that today, especially where I live! I would, without a doubt expose myself to the virus if it were to help one of my own children, or one of my friends kids. But I am not sure I would risk my life (and not being there for my kids) for a random neighbor. Tough call.

I think the media has blown the Coronovirus out of proportion. I read an article yesterday predicting 1/3 of the worlds population would be infected, and 20% of those would die from Coronovirus. The stats are WAY less fear inducing:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus

In fact, this has yet to prove more lethal than the yearly flu.

'nut...was that a true vaccine, or something you took before a Grateful Dead show??

Interesting.

[greenie78]

The flu wouldn’t be as deadly if everyone would get vaccinated for it.

At least with the flu we have readily testing, vaccines, and treatment. We have none of these for the Corona. It’s gonna infect close to 100 million killing at least a million in this country.

[RobertM320]

The flu wouldn’t be as deadly if everyone would get vaccinated for it.

At least with the flu we have readily testing, vaccines, and treatment. We have none of these for the Corona. It’s gonna infect close to 100 million killing at least a million in this country.

I'll guarantee it wont kill a million people in this country. You're being no different than the media now.

[tpstulane]

The flu wouldn’t be as deadly if everyone would get vaccinated for it.

At least with the flu we have readily testing, vaccines, and treatment. We have none of these for the Corona. It’s gonna infect close to 100 million killing at least a million in this country.

They treating it with anti-virals. Just nothing specific for this particular strain. A 103 year old woman in China fully recovered after receiving Anti-viral drugs this week.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 93991.html

A 103-year-old woman has become the oldest person to beat coronavirus and return home.

Zhang Guangfen recovered from the disease after receiving treatment for just six days at a hospital in Wuhan – the Chinese city at the centre of the outbreak.