3. The flu was unlike any previously seen by medical professionals.
Spanish flu struck quickly. For example, the first outbreak reported in the United States occurred in Fort Riley, Kansas, in the late winter of 1918. On March 4 a company cook reported to sick call with the symptoms associated with the disease. In less than one week 522 soldiers at Fort Riley were stricken. With no quarantine and no restrictions on travel, the disease spread outwards, with America’s excellent railway system carrying many of those exposed but not yet stricken to other locations. The disease was reported in New York City one week later, on March 11, 1918. The symptoms were the usual ones of the flu initially, fever, respiratory difficulties, and aches and pains, including severe headaches. Then they got worse.
Spanish flu victims often hemorrhaged through mucous membranes, leading to the sick spitting and vomiting blood, suffering nose bleeds and often bleeding through the ears. A condition known as petechial hemorrhage – bleeding through the skin causing raised pustules filled with blood – was also not uncommon. Some victims were killed directly by the flu through bleeding through their lungs, literally drowning in their own blood. The virulence of the Spanish flu was such that it led to the death of about 20% of those infected, whereas most flu epidemics have a fatality rate of about 0.1%. Despite its ferocity, the epidemic seemed to be waning in the summer of 1918. Unknown to the medical authorities of the time was that the spring outbreak was only the first wave.