Well here's a new one:
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEno ... 8Q20090803
Low WWI whiskey production?
Killer Viruses III. The Camp Funston Funk
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Well, H1N1 is indeed ripping through here like crazy. A couple of school districts in Fremont County have closed as there's 50% absenteeism in their schools, and it's really going through ours here as well. I'm wondering if this might indeed turn out to be darned near as dangerous as predicted. It sure spreads.
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It was reported this past week that the President has declared the swine flu outbreak a National Emergency.
Was the 1918 flu declared something like this? It may have been the case that there was simply no vehicle for "National Emergencies" at that time.
Was the 1918 flu declared something like this? It may have been the case that there was simply no vehicle for "National Emergencies" at that time.
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From today's "Today In History" thread:
Pat Holscher wrote:October 31
1918 October becomes the deadliest month of the 1918 Flu Epidemic in the US.
1918 Alberta's government prohibits all public meetings of seven persons or more due to Flue epidemic.
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As if there weren't enough things to worry about. . .
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... ch/250710/
manufacturing killer flu.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archi ... ch/250710/
manufacturing killer flu.
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Seems like a trend there.Pat Holscher wrote:Shades of Camp Funston in 1918 there.Calendar wrote:February 5
1976 The 1976 swine flu outbreak begins at Fort Dix, NJ.
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Pat Holscher wrote:Late for March 4
1918 At Camp Funston, Kansas, Mess Sergeant Albert Gitchell reported sick at Sick Call on Monday, March 4, 1918. He was sent to the ward housing those suspected of carrying infectious diseases by the medical orderly at Hospital Building 91. The same orderly then saw the next man in line, Cpl. Lee W. Drake, a truck driver assigned to the Headquarters Transportation Detachment's First Battalion. He reported with the same symptoms as Gitchell. The duty medic sent him to the same ward. The orderly then saw Sgt. Adolph Hurby who if anything was sicker.The orderly was then alarmed and called Lt. Elizabeth Harding, the chief nurse. By the time she arrived at the hospital two more sick soldiers were present. She called Col. Edward R. Schreiner, a 45-year-old army surgeon, awakening him from bed. Schreiner was alarmed and was taken to the hospital in the sidecar of a motorcycle driven by his orderly.
By noon there were 107. By the week's end, 522 were sick.
The 1918 Flu Epidemic had begun.
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It's interesting how, over time, an historic event can suddenly acquire a direct personal connection.
Recently, one of my cousins has been active in a project that's brought up a lot of family history that's distributed amongst various members of the extended family. This lead to one of my cousins locating an online item depicting one of my mother's uncles, with two of his siblings and his father, on the docks at Montreal on May 6, 1915, as he was waiting to board a troop ship.
That was very interesting in and of itself, but what surprised me is that the sister that was in the photo, one of my mother's aunts, was a person I'd never heard of. My great grandfather had a very large family, so that might in part have explained it, but I've heard of all the rest of these aunts and uncles. And I know I would have recognized the name, as her first name was an extremely unusual one that I've only heard applied to one other person, that person being my mother. It's such an odd name that my mother has never gone by it ever, using her second name instead. So much so that over the decades she came to reverse their order and now everyone thinks her first name is her second, and vice versa (assuming that they even know what that name is).
Anyhow, here was another one. And the fact that there was didn't even square with my mother's story as to how she acquired the unusual name.
Anyhow, I now know from one of my cousins that the very proud looking young woman in the photograph died in the 1918 flu epidemic. That's why I've never heard of her until now.
Recently, one of my cousins has been active in a project that's brought up a lot of family history that's distributed amongst various members of the extended family. This lead to one of my cousins locating an online item depicting one of my mother's uncles, with two of his siblings and his father, on the docks at Montreal on May 6, 1915, as he was waiting to board a troop ship.
That was very interesting in and of itself, but what surprised me is that the sister that was in the photo, one of my mother's aunts, was a person I'd never heard of. My great grandfather had a very large family, so that might in part have explained it, but I've heard of all the rest of these aunts and uncles. And I know I would have recognized the name, as her first name was an extremely unusual one that I've only heard applied to one other person, that person being my mother. It's such an odd name that my mother has never gone by it ever, using her second name instead. So much so that over the decades she came to reverse their order and now everyone thinks her first name is her second, and vice versa (assuming that they even know what that name is).
Anyhow, here was another one. And the fact that there was didn't even square with my mother's story as to how she acquired the unusual name.
Anyhow, I now know from one of my cousins that the very proud looking young woman in the photograph died in the 1918 flu epidemic. That's why I've never heard of her until now.
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And in the US:Pat Holscher wrote:A graph of deaths due to the Spanish flue in Kansas.
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/flustat.html
Impressive.

From that Stanford article:
I wonder how people would respond to a similar event now, particularly with the 24 Hour (Partially Trivialized) News Cycle?In 1918-19 this deadly influenza pandemic erupted during the final stages of World War I. Nations were already attempting to deal with the effects and costs of the war. Propaganda campaigns and war restrictions and rations had been implemented by governments. Nationalism pervaded as people accepted government authority. This allowed the public health departments to easily step in and implement their restrictive measures. The war also gave science greater importance as governments relied on scientists, now armed with the new germ theory and the development of antiseptic surgery, to design vaccines and reduce mortalities of disease and battle wounds. Their new technologies could preserve the men on the front and ultimately save the world. These conditions created by World War I, together with the current social attitudes and ideas, led to the relatively calm response of the public and application of scientific ideas. People allowed for strict measures and loss of freedom during the war as they submitted to the needs of the nation ahead of their personal needs. They had accepted the limitations placed with rationing and drafting. The responses of the public health officials reflected the new allegiance to science and the wartime society. The medical and scientific communities had developed new theories and applied them to prevention, diagnostics and treatment of the influenza patients.
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Nothing like 1918, but a really bad flu strain is going around this year. . .and has been through my house. Not pleasant at all.
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Medical journal theorizing that the flu actually broke out in the civilian population of Haskell County, Kansas in January, before it hit Camp Funston:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/
It has never been clear, however, where this pandemic began. Since influenza is an endemic disease, not simply an epidemic one, it is impossible to answer this question with absolute certainty. Nonetheless, in seven years of work on a history of the pandemic, this author conducted an extensive survey of contemporary medical and lay literature searching for epidemiological evidence – the only evidence available. That review suggests that the most likely site of origin was Haskell County, Kansas, an isolated and sparsely populated county in the southwest corner of the state, in January 1918. If this hypothesis is correct, it has public policy implications.
In late January and early February 1918 Miner was suddenly faced with an epidemic of influenza, but an influenza unlike any he had ever seen before. Soon dozens of his patients – the strongest, the healthiest, the most robust people in the county – were being struck down as suddenly as if they had been shot.
If the virus did not originate in Haskell, there is no good explanation for how it arrived there. There were no other known outbreaks anywhere in the United States from which someone could have carried the disease to Haskell, and no suggestions of influenza outbreaks in either newspapers or reflected in vital statistics anywhere else in the region.
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The memorial to the Bernese cavalrymen who were victims of the 1918 Flu epidemic:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _01_09.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _01_09.jpg
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