We are not ready for the influenza pandemic

[Irish_Dem]

59. Thank you very much PointDexter. Fascinating.

I will get the book. The points you raise indicate a perfect storm of sorts.

It is so hard to imagine that 20-50 million people were killed in the 1918 epidemic.
More than were killed when the Bubonic plague hit.

I had no idea it originated here in the US and then spread world wide.
And that Wilson and the military refused to take action when the medical community
sounded the alarm about the spread of the illness. Good grief, the physicians not drafted
for the war, were not inclined to believe in the germ theory of illness.

You may recall a few years ago there was a serious outbreak of the flu in the Far East,
China, etc. Japan as I recall did not get one case of the flu.
Experts believe it is because of Japan's obsessive hand washing and cleanliness.

Yes, on the farms in the early 1900s there was a lack of basic sanitation.
Outhouses, no running water in the home, people drinking out of the same
cup attached to the well or water spigot outside the home.

My mother was a nurse during one of the polio outbreaks, and she said
that healthy young men seemed to be hit the hardest. They would be fine
and then suddenly fall to the ground, just total collapse, and end up in an iron lung,
but generally they did not live.

She also recalls the first time she saw penicillin used at the hospital where she worked.
A male with some sort of serious infection was treated. They put his arm in a splint to keep it
perfectly still, and then gave him the penicillin via IV. The medical staff could not believe
how he dramatically improved in a short period of time.

Thank you again for the information and book recommendation.
I will get it on amazon.