Posted on 09/09/2018 9:42:57 AM PDT by NRx
One hundred years ago this month, just as the first world war was drawing to a fitful close, an influenza virus unlike any before or since swept across the British Isles, felling soldiers and civilians alike...
...On 11 September 1918, Lloyd George, riding high on news of recent Allied successes, arrived in Manchester to be presented with the keys to the city. Female munitions workers and soldiers home on furlough cheered his passage from Piccadilly train station to Albert Square. But later that evening, he developed a sore throat and fever and collapsed.
He spent the next 10 days confined to a sickbed in Manchester town hall, too ill to move and with a respirator to aid his breathing. Newspapers, including the Manchester Guardian, underplayed the severity of his condition for fear of presenting the Germans with a propaganda coup. But, according to his valet, it had been “touch and go”.
Lloyd George, then aged 55, survived, but others were not so lucky. In an era before antibiotics and vaccines, the “Spanish influenza” – so-called because neutral Spain was one of the few countries in 1918 where correspondents were free to report on the outbreak – claimed the lives of nearly 250,000 Britons. Cruelly for a nation that had seen the flower of British male youth mown down by German guns, the majority were adults aged 20 to 40. The mortality was the inverse of most flu seasons, when deaths fall most heavily on the elderly and the under-fives.
The global death toll was inconceivable: according to the most recent estimates, between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide perished in the three pandemic waves between the spring of 1918 and the winter of 1919. Adjusting for population growth, that is equivalent to between 200 million and 425 million today.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
My uncle died from it.
Absolutely no relation to the multiple airline from multiple points of origin that have had hundreds of passengers fall ill during the flights recently. Nope. None.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
bump!
Modern meds and IV hydration would significantly lower the death toll were the same strain hit today.
Not saying there wouldn’t be a purge, only that it wouldn’t be in the 50-100 million range.
I also liked Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
My father told me that his mother died from the Spanish Flu.
A great book on the topic is the Great Influenza by John Barry.
There are simply a lot of people who died and other than some death certificate stamped....they really weren’t counted. So the numbers you might see from Boston or NY City...I would not consider them accurate.
One of the stories that I found interesting in the book was some guy coming home from work and feeling weak. He went to bed. In the morning, the kids left for school, and the wife came to find the guy was dead. When the kids arrived from school...mom was feeling weak and she would be dead by the next morning.
Yikes! The 'equivalent' of a top secret clearance? That's not as comforting as it used to be...
Yeah, they seem to hand those out like candy.
My grandfather told me stories about seeing some acquaintance on the street in the afternoon and the next day they’d be dead.
And because of the way this strain works most often victims were young and in the prime of health.
Always wondered if that flu was developed as a biological weapon by Germany (it really had its start in US training camps); but got out of control and so all evidence of that was destroyed (perhaps including the creators).
Losing nations often try to use desperate measures (gas, with Germany; all sorts of “fiendish” devices by the Confederacy; etc.)
The areas that missed out on the influenza? These were rural communities without many travelers or people passing through. My dad brought this up with my grandfather who was in his 20s when it hit. He didn’t know anyone within five miles of the house who died of influenza...it was like it just skipped this rural community.
I was reading a piece where they were discussing some big parade up in Philly, and the doctors all wanted the parade cancelled. Political folks refused to go along with that...that it’d scare the public if they cancelled the parade.
We are more mobile now than then. So maybe mobility is a blessing.
People die when they are exposed to a brand new virus strain that they or their ancestors were never exposed to because they were isolated.
Plus, people intentionally expose themselves to new viruses via flu shots, too.
From what I understand, the Spanish Flu killed by provoking an immune system hyper-response, sometimes called the “Cytokine Storm” which severely damages the lungs and causes Acute Respiratory Distress (ARD) resulting in oxygen deprivation to the internal organs.
Here is an over the counter (OTC) formula that inhibits some of the major inflammatory mediators, and is now being suggested as a way to stave off ARD. All four factors must be included.
1a) A prescription ACE-2 inhibitor anti-hypertension drug. (Note: Healthy folks w/normal BP would experience a crash in BP, fainting, et al. Those already on other types of BP lowering meds would experience the same.) -or-In addition, it is also recommended to maintain just the MDAR of Vitamin A. Being short of Vitamin A is associated with having an excess of a very powerful inflammatory mediator called TNF-1. But it is easy to take too much Vitamin A, which is toxic. High doses of the provitamin Beta-carotene, which the body converts to Vitamin A, might work as well as straight Vitamin A, and are much less toxic.
1b) If unavailable, 15,000 IU of Vitamin D* (Note: 15,000 IU is a huge dose of Vitamin D, a fat soluble vitamin. This means excess Vitamin D is stored in the liver, rather being excreted. The half life of Vitamin D is roughly three weeks, and Vitamin D toxicity can cause serious problems)2) Histamine-1 blocker. Benedryl or the equivalent.
3) Histamine-2 blocker. Tagamet or the equivalent (normally used to block acid reflux.)
4) Ibuprofen. Advil or the equivalent, a prostaglandin blocker.
Care should be taken to avoid “health foods” that can artificially enhance the immune system, something to be avoided when there is the prospect of ARD.
This was extracted from an earlier thread I've lost track of, with some comments on Vitamin D from NautiNurse, and on ACE-2 inhibitors from reformedliberal added, and a flat out guess on Beta Carotene from me...
To which I might add zinc inhibits viral reproduction and oregano oil (20 drops/gallon shake well, and drink in place of ordinary water) is also said to help.
I suspect my great great uncle died from it. He died in 1918 from pneumonia.
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