1918 Influenza

Elle Noller

            This influenza was a great catastrophe and had killed more men than the war did. It spread between each person very quickly without anyone knowing or caring. As people were captured and sent to prison by the United States army, the soldiers started getting sick. Soldiers pasted it on to each other because of the close quarters and the awful public health. There were also some problems with the dirtiness of the sewers and the sanitation in the areas of the city was terrifying. Doctor kept getting complaints about people getting sick and needing to be treated. Soon they started keeping over a hundred men in the infirmary because they had the flu. While doctors were trying their very best to help the men and get them an antidote, they started dying from it. This was dwindling the number of soldiers fighting for the United States and also killed off a lot of citizens along the way.
            As people's family members’ fad away from the flu, people as devastated to see their loved ones leaving them and are scared that they might catch it to. The communities put up some posters with tips on how to stay healthy so they can avoid getting the flu at all costs. These posters had positive and motivate phases on them like, "Healthy Girls Get More Fun out of Life" (Office of the Public Health Service Historian). People also went around cleaning the sewers and fixing the sanitation problem in the filthy cities because people thought that it might help the disease from spreading to other citizens. Then they taught women how to sterilize their utensils and doctors ended up using the same technique. Doctors and nurses sterilized their medical supplies to keep the disease from spread from one person to another when they are doing check ups on others to see if they have the flu.

            Soon people were trying to make a vaccine for the flu and when they did it was a little too late. The men were still very contagious after several days till they started showing some kind of sign of symptoms. Some of the men and civilians survived from the flu but other were not as lucky. Some of the people that went through having the flu were fine with aches, nausea, fever, and chills. Others had it much worse than they did. They would use up energy to cry out from having an hug, painful earaches and headaches.

            At first, people just thought it was a bad cold and people would get over it. As time went on people started dying and no one knew why it was happening. The flu was going around killing off people one by one. It was deadly because there was no vaccine for it and no one knew about it until people started to die from it. Even when they had invented a vaccine to cure the flu some still died from it.

            As people became sick and started to die, newspapers started to write about the flu. They wrote articles to keep the public updated on what was going on in the city. There were also telephones but not very many that helped people keep in touch with each other on what was happening in that area. Then there is the older version, letters would be sent from soldiers or citizens to whoever they wanted to go to. These thing helped the public be more aware of what to do and avoid when roaming around, like the flu. 

            The public did not want to get sick so they did what they were told to do so they would be safe and their loved ones would be protected. Doctors tried to help their patients in every way possible until they could find a way to treat them. They just took in as many men as possible to keep the flu from spreading so much. Doctors and nurses looked after the sick soldiers and citizens to help them will their symptoms of the flu. They tried to keep them from crying out and scaring everyone in the area. As soon as they found the antidote to end the flu disaster, a enormous amount of people had already died from the flu and they gave it out to the sick people that would able to survive from the flu. Somewhere able to survive from the flu but others were not so lucky, they were too weak and diseased to be saved from the medicine. The flu passed the area and they then figured out that everyone needs to take the vaccine to keep it from spreading again. Never have there ever been so many people that died from something other than war.

Man sick in bed.

Doctors trying to treat a man from the flu

Where everyone that was sick went.

Inspecting.

Examination of immigrants at Ellis Island

"Revise Time Table In Influenza Fight." New York Times [New York] 6 Oct. 1918: 
     n. pag. Print. I used this resource because this tells me how people told 
     everyone in the area what was going on. Also the paper told the people 
     around to be careful and try not to get influenza or they might die. The New 
     York Times is helping the people be aware of what is going on so they can 
     be more careful and cautious. 

Roy. Letter. PBS. N.p., 26 Sept. 1918. Web. 22 Feb. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/ 
     wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/influenza-letter/>. 
     This source gives me the information on how it was to be a person in that 
     time period, while the disease is going around to others. And telling 
     information that had been sent to someone else, which is way 
     information was sent out for others to know and be aware about. 

"The First Wave." PBS. N.p., 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/ 
     wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/influenza-first-wave/>. 
     this source has a good amount of information telling me how many men were 
     taken in and how many died. How many men from the war died from the flu 
     instead of the war. Some soldiers catch it from the prisoners that they 
     captured from the other side of the war. 

"SNAPSHOT OF THE WORLD IN 1918." The Great Pandemic. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 
     2015. <http://www.flu.gov/pandemic/history/1918/life_in_1918/snapshot/ 
     index.html>. This website has so much information on the the flu in 1918 
     and time after that. This recourse give you so much information about life 
     styles, communication, entertainment back then, and etc. It gives so much 
     information in depth and information on individual states in American. 

Duffy, Jim. "The Blue Death." John Hopkins Public Health. Ed. Sylvia Eggleston 
     Wehr. N.p., 2004. Web. 22 Feb. 2015. <http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2004/ 
     fall/prologues/>. Shows a good picture of how the room looked with all 
     the people with the flu and the doctors trying to find a way to treat them. 
     The article talks about where some people were held and talks about some 
     people, Burke and Derek Cummings.

Taubenberger, Jeffery K., and David M. Morens. "1918 Influenza: the Mother of 
     All Pandemics." CDC. N.p., Jan. 2006. Web. 22 Feb. 2015. 
     <http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/1/pdfs/05-0979.pdf>. This 
     sources tells me where the virus originated. Also told me when and where 
     influenza pandemic arises and so much more. It talks about who we can 
     prevent the flu from spreading so much again. 
Brinkley, Alan. American History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print. This 
     source is very reliable with its information. It has a lot of information 
     on it was effecting the people and the city.