Spanish Flu

In 1918, after the world was suffering through years of war, something almost as terrifying ravaged around the world. This was a strain of the influenza virus known by English-speaking people as the 'Spanish Flu'. In reality, the Spanish Flu probably did not originate from Spain, but was called this as it was one of the only countries with free media, and was one of the only countries to properly cover the outbreak. This was because countries taking part in the war did not want to damage the morale of their population by delivering bad news, and Spain was one of the only ones to free of this restraint.

The Spanish Flu is a strain of the influenza virus. Science was not advanced enough at the time to identify the exact strain, but it became clear that it was influenza. If you want to find out more about the influenza virus, click here. The reason that this pandemic occurred, seperate from the usual flu season, is that this virus developed a strain that became especially severe.

In the Northern Hemisphere's spring of 1918, the first wave of the Spanish Flu occurred. This was not as severe as the virus would become, and mostly had the symptoms of the normal seasonal flu. When the second wave occurred in the Northern Hemisphere's autumn, however, it became clear that the strain was out to do a lot of damage. Victims of this strain could die within hours or days, when their lungs became filled with fluid, causing them to turn blue.

A distinguishing feature of this pandemic was that everyone was in danger. This virus was equally as capable of killing young people as it was elderly, and this meant that many for the soldiers in WW1, the virus was another threat to their lives.

The overall death rate of this pandemic was horrific. Some statistics estimate the death toll to be somewhere between 20 to 50 million, however others say that it may have been around 100 million.

Unlike in modern medicine, their was no cure nor vaccine for influenza. The pandemic only ended when immunity as a society was achieved, as people had either recovered or died.

As is expected, this pandemic had a huge impact on society at the time. Many whole families died, or people, possibly even more tragically, were left as orphans, widows and widowers.

The unfortunate part of the Spanish flu is that it occurred during WW1. Due to this, recording of this pandemic was poor. Funds were being spent on the war effort, not on the disease, and so it was able to do terrible damage, slightly under the radar.