The Influenza and Pneumonia Epidemic of 1918-1919 Essay -- American Am

The flu and Pneumonia Epidemic of 1918-1919In the ten months between September 1918 and June 1919, 675,000 Americans died of influenza and pneumonia. When compared to the issuance of Americans killed in combat in World war I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam combined- 423,000- it becomes apparent that the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 was far more deadly than the war which it accompanied. (Crosby, 206-207) The United States and the rest of the world had been exposed to such epidemics in the past, merely never at such a severe cost in human life.The influenza epidemic came in two waves. The first wave, in the spring of 1918, took far fewer victims than the second. Americans stricken with the flu that spring wondered at the intensity of its symptoms and its incredible contagion. Doctors noticed that the virus seemed to administer more quick than it ever had before that year, but did not realize how quickly it would deliberate epidemic proportion. As summer approached, the di sease appeared to have satisfied its relish for new victims.However, the second, deadlier wave of influenza was just about ready to let loose itself on the world, and it did so quickly. By August 1918, the Surgeon General of the the States reported that the death rate from disease for American soldiers was almost 2/3 lower than the annual rate for civilian males of the same age. At the end of the month, the Spanish influenza virus mutated, and epidemics of unprecedented virulence explode in the same week in three port cities thousands of miles asunder Freetown, Sierra Le oneness, Brest, Belgium, and capital of Massachusetts, Massachusetts. (Crosby, 37) It is still unknown whether this was the result of three appearances of a exclusive mutation or three different simultaneous mutatio... ...wed that it had learned from its implement in 1918. Flu epidemics in the thirties and the fifties never approached the magnitude of the 1918-1919 disaster. Research across the world eventua lly isolated and identified the virus which causes influenza and the microorganisms which so often accompany it and cause deadly complications identical pneumonia and strep and staph infections. The American public health system is one of, if not the, best in the world today at educating its citizens and preventing the spread of communicable disease. Historians can only speculate about what would have happened if race had applied the knowledge of today to the devastating epidemic of so many years ago.WORKS CITEDCrosby, Alfred W., Jr. Epidemic and Peace, 1918. Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1976.Hoehling, A.A. The Great Epidemic. Boston Little, Brown and Company, 1961.