(Continued) ....
A Soldier’s Tale
Let us relate the story of the worldwide Influenza Pandemic of 1918. This Pandemic brought death to 675,000 Americans in the United States, a number higher than that of the number of U.S. troops killed in combat during World War I, World War II, and the Korean, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghan conflicts combined. This deadly virus acted quickly and often meant death within twelve hours after infection. Most of its victims came from the young and healthy twenty- to forty-year-old age group. Victor Vaughn, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, noted in 1918 that this pathogen pushed civilized society to the brink of collapse. He stated, “If the epidemic continues at its mathematical rate, civilization could easily disappear from the face of the earth within a few weeks.”
The origin of this virus remains questionable. Some believe that it originated in a swampy British Base in Northern France during 1917. Other investigators assert that the disease originated with sick birds or pigs or that it emanated from a WWI soldier stationed in Southeast Asia between 1916 and 1918. In his book “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History” (Penguin Books, 2005), John M. Barry cites that the virus jumped from pigs to humans in Haskell County, Kansas, and caused a local but severe epidemic. It appears that the young men who survived the virus carried it with them to a nearby military base as Army Recruits. The epidemic arose again and spread through the 100,000 trainees housed in densely populated barracks. As this episode diminished, many men transferred to Camp Funston (aka Fort Riley), where a new outbreak emerged within six days under similar housing conditions in late February 1918. The virus mutated through three distinct waves during which the second and third surfaced as more severe than the first.
Soldiers, shipped abroad, carried the virus in through the port at Brest, France, during April 1918. They infected healthy troops before both groups shipped out to the front lines of trench warfare. As a result of hand-to-hand and face-to-face combat, the Allied forces infected German soldiers, who contaminated German civilians when home on leave. By June 1918, the pandemic had spread into Italy, England, North Africa, Eastern Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, and the Iberian Peninsula. Neutral Spain experienced eight million deaths, which they reported in the media of the day. In contrast, countries involved in the conflict remained silent about their casualties so as not to alert their enemies about their weaknesses. Hence, this Pandemic became known as the “Spanish Flu,” a misnomer that continues to this day.
Muddy trenches and battlefields with decomposing bodies in No-Man’s Land became breeding grounds for the virus. For many combatants, the Flu developed into pneumonia, with high fevers that led to hallucinations, blindness, paralysis, and destruction of the lungs that resembled the effects of poisonous gas. Those infected often turned dark bluish from oxygen starvation. The “Blue Death” followed in a few hours.
By August 1918, troop ships returning to America experienced high death rates, as did the ports that they entered. By September, the disease spread throughout military hospitals, which in turn led to severely overcrowded morgues. Meanwhile, seemingly well officers spread the virus to other U.S. camps where face masks remained in short supply due to a lack of cloth. Meanwhile, healthy relatives came to these camps to claim the bodies of family members and carried the flu home with them to many cities and towns across America. Troops that could still stand were transferred to other bases. Packed into railroad cars, they infected local communities during stops along the way.
The Philadelphia Story
In 1918, hundreds of thousands of workers and their families migrated to Philadelphia from rural and small-town America for employment at steel plants, docks, and railroads in support of the War Effort. Multiple families crowded into squalid, filthy slums due to a shortage of adequate housing. These tenements lacked indoor plumbing of any kind, which necessitated that tenants share one outhouse in an alley with a hundred other people. Also, many workers rotated beds by shift, though the sheets remained unchanged. This environment nurtured a perfect breeding ground for an epidemic.
The Philadelphia Board of Health downplayed the severity of the Influenza Epidemic by stating that it had reached its zenith and began to decline (a miracle?). The local and federal governments became desperate for money. In response, the U.S. government decided to issue more war bonds and to set a sales quota for each city. The City of Philadelphia promoted its Liberty Loan Parade against the pleas of the medical community. On 28 September 1918, hundreds of thousands crowded together along the main parade route.
Within 76 hours, the 31 hospitals of Philadelphia had run out of space. Hospital staff set up cots along corridors and on outdoor balconies. The staff placed new patients on beds still warm from recently deceased patients. However, more people lined up and begged to enter the hospitals, which could not accommodate them. In these hospitals, the overtaxed doctors and nurses ran out of medications. Due to this Pandemic, medical schools closed. First-year students left to volunteer at the hospitals. Unfortunately, 25% of the in-patients died every day because the city had ignored public-health guidelines.
Soon, bodies piled up in morgues and in funeral homes where there was a shortage of coffins. Since people of Philadelphia had no place to bring their dead, bodies remained at home in spare rooms and on porches; also, these corpses were stacked in back alleys. Families turned to digging the graves of relatives. No food came into the city and orphaned children starved. A now-dysfunctional Philadelphia government managed to dig trenches for mass graves. Residents carried out their dead to the street and stacked them to await whatever available transportation would come to remove the corpses for mass burial. In total, 13,000 died of this virus in Philadelphia. In New York City, the total reached 33,000 before the county coroner stopped counting. Ironically, a children’s jump-rope song of the time included the lyrics “I had a little bird/ Its name was Enza/ I opened the window/ and in flew Enza!” Eventually, the activity of the Epidemic decreased and died out. No vaccine was ever created.
On 11 November 1918, the two sides in the European conflict signed the Armistice that allowed both lay down their arms and to tend to more immediate matters affecting their populations. No surrender occurred at this time. The fighting resumed in 1939, launching Part Two of the Great War to End All Wars.
In addition to the book by John M. Barry cited earlier, we would like to recommend an insightful video that reflects the Barry book. On YouTube, you may view the 1918 Spanish Flu Historical Documentary | Swine Flu Pandemic | Deadly Plague of 1918 (https://youtu.be/UDY5COg2P2c).
Takeaway
In closing this episode of “Sufficient Affluence/Sustainable Economy,” we hope that our readers have received some helpful and meaningful information that can be tied to recent events. The building or rebuilding of a sustainable economy that provides sufficient affluence remains a task for all. This task requires that we unite as human beings and invest the thought, planning, and action to remove us from the horns of the current dilemma. Stay well.
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Dr. John F. Sase teaches Economics at Wayne State University and has practiced Forensic and Investigative Economics for twenty years. He earned a combined M.A. in Economics and an MBA at the University of Detroit, followed by a Ph.D. in Economics from Wayne State University. He is a graduate of the University of Detroit Jesuit High School (www.saseassociates.com).
Gerard J. Senick is a freelance writer, editor, and musician. He earned his degree in English at the University of Detroit and was a supervisory editor at Gale Research Company (now Cengage) for over twenty years. Currently, he edits books for publication (www.senick-editing.com).
Julie G. Sase is a copyeditor, parent coach, and empath. She earned her degree in English at Marygrove College and her graduate certificate in Parent Coaching from Seattle Pacific University. Ms. Sase coaches clients, writes articles, and edits copy (royaloakparentcoaching.com).
