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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.03.15 15:47l 63 Lines 3069 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 49658_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Mar 11
Path: IW8PGT<I3LUG<IZ3LSV<IK6ZDE<IW0QNL<ED1ZAC<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 150311/1440Z 49658@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
1918
First cases reported in deadly influenza epidemic
Just before breakfast on the morning of March 11, Private Albert
Gitchell of the U.S. Army reports to the hospital at Fort Riley,
Kansas, complaining of the cold-like symptoms of sore throat,
fever and headache. By noon, over 100 of his fellow soldiers had
reported similar symptoms, marking what are believed to be the
first cases in the historic influenza epidemic of 1918. The flu
would eventually kill 675,000 Americans and more than 20 million
people (some believe the total may be closer to 40 million)
around the world, proving to be a far deadlier force than even
the First World War.
The initial outbreak of the disease, reported at Fort Riley in
March, was followed by similar outbreaks in army camps and
prisons in various regions of the country. The disease soon
traveled to Europe with the American soldiers heading to aid the
Allies on the battlefields of France. (In March 1918 alone,
84,000 American soldiers headed across the Atlantic; another
118,000 followed them the next month.) Once it arrived on a
second continent, the flu showed no signs of abating: 31,000
cases were reported in June in Great Britain. The disease was
soon dubbed the Spanish flu due to the shockingly high number of
deaths in Spain (some 8 million, it was reported) after the
initial outbreak there in May 1918.
The flu showed no mercy for combatants on either side of the
trenches. Over the summer, the first wave of the epidemic hit
German forces on the Western Front, where they were waging a
final, no-holds-barred offensive that would determine the outcome
of the war. It had a significant effect on the already weakening
morale of the troops-as German army commander Crown Prince
Rupprecht wrote on August 3: poor provisions, heavy losses, and
the deepening influenza have deeply depressed the spirits of men
in the III Infantry Division. Meanwhile, the flu was spreading
fast beyond the borders of Western Europe, due to its
exceptionally high rate of virulence and the massive transport of
men on land and aboard ship due to the war effort. By the end of
the summer, numerous cases had been reported in Russia, North
Africa and India; China, Japan, the Philippines and even New
Zealand would eventually fall victim as well.
The Great War ended on November 11, but influenza continued to
wreak international havoc, flaring again in the U.S. in an even
more vicious wave with the return of soldiers from the war and
eventually infecting an estimated 28 percent of the country's
population before it finally petered out. In its December 28,
1918, issue, the American Medical Association acknowledged the
end of one momentous conflict and urged the acceptance of a new
challenge, stating that Medical science for four and one-half
years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and
keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to
combating the greatest enemy of all_infectious disease.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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