In the contemporary times, the spread of the Asian flu, the Aids virus and the SARS epidemic have been instrumental in disease outbreaks and pandemics into mainstream consciousness. The pandemics of the modern day may seem unique, but they all have a connotation in history.
A staggering twenty-five million people lost their lives to the flu as it spread all over the world. The outbreak began in August of 1918, and it was finally contained in March 1919. To the American nation, over a half-million people lost their lives to the terrible flu. In the contemporary America, the pandemic remains largely forgotten. Crosby, in his book, America's Forgotten Pandemic, tries to recount the course of the pandemic during the period it prevailed in America. He goes ahead to evaluate its impact to the American society and its subsequent elimination from the national memory.
The name Spanish flu arose from the fact that Spain had not been belligerent in the First World War and thus got worldwide newspapers faster. In the other countries such as the United States, France, and Germany, newspapers were placed under great censorship. As a result, the only country that got to be publicized in relation to the flu was Spain. The name was only as a result of the publicity that the Spanish pandemic received.
In the history of influenza pandemics, none had been known to kill people in such huge numbers. The symptoms and impacts of the Spanish flu were far from the conventional flu that the world was aware of. This meant that most people, including medical practitioners, failed to associate the disease with flu. The Spanish flu had caused innumerable deaths of young adults, which was not a known element of influenza. To capture the devastation of the disease, Crosby remarked “Nothing else - no infection, no war, no famine - has ever killed so many in as short a period. And yet it has never inspired awe, not in 1918 and not since, not among the citizens of any particular land and not among the citizens of the United States”.
When looking for sources on the occurrence and impact of the disease, Crosby had to try and find incidences that were not necessarily diagnosed as influenza. For instance, William Henry Welsh, who was the lead American pathologist, scientist and physician suggested that the disease might be plague while a significant portion of the population chose to identify it as meningitis. Patriotism played a major role in hampering the understanding of the real disease.
Innumerable diagnoses were made in regards to the symptoms that the disease depicted while avoiding the obvious one, influenza. The reason why the disease was not associated with influenza is because never before in history had influenza been known to kill populations in such large numbers. For most authorities, the first reaction was a denial. The amount of resources, effort, and policy implementation that had to go into fighting the disease was enormous.
For this reason, most governments chose to ignore and deny the magnitude of the disease. Documentation of a disease that the government was not ready to acknowledge was thus highly unlikely. The numerous diagnoses of the disease remained unreported and undocumented. This presents another major challenge in relation to the finding information about the disease.
For instance, the Chief Health Officer of New York chose to deny the magnitude and danger of the disease despite the devastating deaths that it was causing all over America. For American, two important occurrences were taking place concurrently. On one end, the war demanded continued industrial production of both weapons and goods and services. On the other hand, the ravishing influenza was necessitating the closure of everything, if it was to be properly managed and contained.
Looking at the working conditions and safety conditions in most factories in America, influenza found a perfect chance to spread even further. The war continued to demand enlisting of soldiers, who had to be trained in jammed barracks before being sent off to France.
A crucial step in creating a historical picture is by understanding its very onset and mode of growth or spread. For influenza, however, Crosby faced the challenge of having to identify the epicenter of the disease before he could begin to trace it. The activities and demands of the Great War and factory operations meant that it presented a very wide area to conduct research. A great deal of the challenge that arose in finding sources for the pandemic research must have been authorities and institutions, who may have intentionally downplayed the magnitude of the pandemic as a way of easing the responsibility that had to be accomplished. Another challenge that might have arisen with the research was the sheer size of the area that had to be covered.
Influenza had been reported in over five countries, and for this reason, the development of a comprehensive picture required a lot of time and resources. Despite the death and devastation that arose from the 1918 Spanish influenza, it remains largely forgotten in the mainstream consciousness of world pandemics.
One would argue that the deletions of such a pandemic from the national and global memory can be linked to its occurrence alongside the First World War. According to Crosby, the merging of the influenza pandemic with the Great War hysteria was the single most critical aspect that made it forgettable. One the most common narratives that were used to downplay the pandemic was that the flu was being caused by German germ bombs.
This correlation was integral in cementing the influenza pandemic and the Great War. For American and the global society at large, the flu pandemic was slowly eroded from the mainstream memory and was replaced by the more dominant and more culturally accredited world war.
The fact that the origin of influenza remained a mystery only prevailing, in theory, meant that it would be daunting to trace it through history. For that reason, the Spanish influenza of 1918 has been termed as the forgotten pandemic in the books of history. The armistice and the Great War archives drowned the pandemic as a result of the power that war has in relation to cultural memory.
Bibliography
Crosby, Alfred W. America's forgotten pandemic: the influenza of 1918. Cambridge University Press, 2003.
