1918 Merry Xmas

[kpete]

Link to tweet

?s=20

[malaise]

1. Get thee to the greatest page

RFN!

[Hugin]

2. This could have been printed yesterday.

At least now there is some understanding of pathogens and vaccines.

[BannonsLiver]

17. That's probably because it was

Here is the original, which had nothing to do with the 1918 pandemic.

https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/wwiposters/83/

[Hugin]

19. Disappointing.

Still, true.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

24. I suspected as much.

Sometimes Dems are just as gullible as RWers.

[uponit7771]

3. K, so ... that's some scary shit. The US isn't doing much different than in 1918 and even worse ...

... seeing 1. we know wearing a mask worked then and we have better masks now and 2. we put a man on the moon before I was born.

Jus ... damn

[PatSeg]

9. Yes, in many ways, I think worse

Most people didn't travel very much back then, so it is likely that for many, it didn't spread as far or as quickly as it does today. There would have been areas totally unaffected by the pandemic, because they didn't come in contact with any infected people. Of course, we have the advantage of more sanitary living conditions. Indoor plumbing especially gives us an edge.

[sarge43]

20. Actually at the time, a lot of people traveled a lot.

All those military and naval personnel returning from the war zones. They were from North America, all of Europe, Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand. They were packed into trains and troop ships. If even one in a hundred were infected ... we know the result. Worse, in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, the medical support was stretched to the breaking point and beyond. In India and sub Sahara Africa, wasn't much to begin with and broken by the first wave.

It was a plague's dream scenario.

[PatSeg]

22. Yes

I was going to mention the military leaving middle America and carrying the flu to Europe, but the average American tended to stay pretty close to home much of the time. Today, people get on planes and travel across country or overseas fairly regularly. I was surprised when working on numerous branches of my family tree, that I didn't find one mention of the flu, but most of these people lived on farms or in small towns. For them, the pandemic might have been something they read about in the newspaper.

How different things might have been if the U.S. hadn't sent sick soldiers to Europe, at least in the size and spread of the pandemic.

[sarge43]

23. Relative isolation certainly gave protection; however,

a lot of those servicemen came from farms and small towns. Further, once back in the US most of them would have traveled all over returning to their homes.

Your family was fortunate; however, as it is today, people were traumatized. They were reluctant to talk about their experiences. I had to directly ask my mother about hers and she usually had no problem talking about the two clan's shenanigans. This isn't just a one off. Several studies and documentaries mention survivor reluctance, a common symptom of post trauma. Not saying your family was among them, just offering a possibility.

Here is one of the best summation I've run across:https://virus.stanford.edu/uda

US population 1920: 106M and it was about half and half rural v. urban.

[niyad]

4. Great find!

[gademocrat7]

5. K&R

Very good advice then and now.

[SheltieLover]

6. Why don't some humans learn?

[BannonsLiver]

18. We've done okay with tuberculosis

Who’s is what this poster was actually about, not influenza.

https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/wwiposters/83/

[safeinOhio]

7. My dad was 6 years old and he remembered

the neighbor tossing food over the fence. His mother had the Spanish Flu.
Then, almost 30 years later he was one the military that got an experimental vaccine for the Yellow Fever. It was a faulty vaccine that he contracted Hep A from it.
My Grandmother went on to live into her 90s and so did Dad.

[sarge43]

13. My mother was 10 years old and remembered

She told me about watching coffins being dropped off at neighbors' homes. Three of her school friends died.

With one exception, her family all came down with the flu - grandfather, father, aunt, brother, sister and herself. Her grandmother was a RN, didn't succumb and somehow kept them all alive. She said the hospitals weren't an option, all filled up.

[safeinOhio]

21. I've spent time looking at grave stones in cemeteries.

See lots of young people that died in 1918 and 1919.

[Ligyron]

14. I think people were tougher back then.

More infant and childhood death, of course and the weaker, for the most part, just didn’t live long enough to even reproduce, most people waiting for marriage to have kids.

Fast forward to huge medical advances and multiple pregnancies before the age of 16.

[dalton99a]

8. Kick

[frogmarch]

10. My dad's mother died from that flu

in 1918. He was 12.

Thanks for posting this!

[onecaliberal]

11. K&R

[orangecrush]

12. Kick and rec

[Pluvious]

15. Apparently not 1918 Flu - 1919 Red Cross fight against Tuberculosis - original here

Link to tweet

[BannonsLiver]

16. It's fake. Original was about TB.

https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/wwiposters/83/