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1918: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic

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The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It is a true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy overnight. It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS and Alzheimer's disease combined.
It is estimated that forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. No area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts were died in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Between 20 million and 100 million people died in the 1918 flu pandemic, but for years afterward this plague was almost completely forgotten. Histories and even medical texts rarely mention it. …show more content…

It traveled across the United States in weeks, the globe in only a few months, and it could have a rapid course, progressing from early symptoms to death in a day. The epidemic had two other crucial characteristics. It did not respect the epidemiologic rules taught by influenza outbreaks ignoring risk factors such as age and localized outbreaks. Its symptoms were gruesome: Your face turns a dark brownish purple. You start to cough up blood. Your feet turn black. A blood-tinged saliva bubbles out of your mouth. You die--by drowning. It was a mystery with no known origin, no known etiology, and no treatment. From its extraordinary ability to reach into everyday life in every nation to the special trains to carry away the dead, the epidemic is a story of mythic proportions. Along with these colossal attributes, it is also given, in popular thought, the power of

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