Despite the name “Spanish Flu“, Spain was not unduly ill-affected. While it did strike the nation – King Alfonso himself was taken ill with it – the name came about because Spain was one of the few areas in which it could be fully reported. Wartime censors, anxious to maintain morale, banned the earliest reports of the disease that were coming out of the war-affected areas.
It was understandably a large blow to the public morale when a large portion of the First World War soldiers, whom governments were portraying as heroes, returned to their homes with deadly influenza that could kill millions. Thus, it was not mentioned and instead, Spain, which had been neutral in World War One, became known as the nation with the flu.
What sometimes confused the marking of statistics was that the symptoms of H1N1 flu, the flu that attacked the healthy, were basically unidentifiable as different to those of the regular flu that arrived every year and attacked the very old and the very young. With the normal influenza virus at a particularly high level due to war conditions, the H1N1 virus was difficult to pick out.
And yet, as quickly as the pandemic had spread throughout the world, it was almost as quickly extinguished. After the second wave at the end of 1918, the number of cases plummeted around the globe: in Philadelphia, for example, over 4,000 people were killed in the middle of October, but within a month the disease had all but dissipated.
There is no clear reason regarding why the disease ended, but as ever, theories abound. Some chart it to the improvement in experience of doctors treating influenza, who were able to save more people, particularly those who died of secondary conditions brought on by the Spanish flu. Others hold that the virus, which had so quickly mutated into the H1N1 strand of influenza, simply mutated again into a less deadly and less easily contracted strain. This stands in line with wider ideas on the influenza virus, which is known to die out when its hosts, those infected, swiftly die. Without living bodies to spread the virus via breathing, it cannot continue.
The history of the Spanish flu is often left out of that of the First World War and overlooked when discussing the huge political issues of the time. Between the fall of one German Empire in war and the rise of another, destined for another war, it can be lost that millions died in between via disease. Europe would recover, as it does, but through a combination of disease, economic turmoil and political violence, it would see itself again fall into the morass of war and division – and the second time would be even worse than the first…
Sources For Further Reading:
History Collection – 20 of History’s Most Devastating Plagues and Epidemics
NCBI – The Origin and Virulence of the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza Virus
Virology Journal – From Where Did The 2009 ‘Swine-Origin’ Influenza A Virus (H1N1) Emerge?
Science Daily – 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic Originated In Mexico, Researchers Discover
BBC Future – The Reasons Swine Flu Could Return
History Collection – Universal Outbreaks That Changed History
CDC – 1918 Pandemic Influenza: Three Waves
CNN – What We Can Learn From 1918’s Deadly Second Wave
BBC News – Flu Virus With ‘Pandemic Potential’ Found In China