SonicHappyHourAddict
Well-known member
I found many references to Spanish Flu in the gutenberg texts. Here are a few.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22523/22523-h/22523-h.htm
Visited civilian hospitals Nov. 16th, which were in a most horrible
state. No ventilation and practically all with Spanish influenza and, in
addition, many with gangrenous wounds. Tried to enlighten the Russian
doctor in charge with the fact that fresh air would be beneficial to his
cases. But he seemed to think I was entirely out of my sphere and
ignored what I said. I reported the situation to British headquarters
and thereafter he reluctantly did as I suggested. Then arranged with
headquarters to send Russian medical officer and felchers with American
medical officers out to villages where assistance was needed most,
instructing each to impress on the natives the necessity of fresh air
and proper hygiene. They found there was such a shortage of the proper
kind of food that the people had no resistance against disease, and were
dying by the hundreds. In the meantime established annex to civilian
hospital in a school building. Had wooden beds made and placed felchers
in charge.
Tried to segregate cases in Shenkursk and immediate vicinity as much as
possible. After getting everything in working order I found a shortage
of doctors. So I proceeded to villages not yet reached by others. Report
from Ust Padenga that Lieut. Cuff and fourteen enlisted men killed or
missing on patrol Nov. 29th; some of the bodies recovered.
Weather growing colder. Twenty degrees below zero, with snow four inches
deep. Evacuated sick and wounded from Ust Padenga eighteen versts beyond
Shenkursk in sleds filled with hay and blankets necessary for warmth.
Shakleton shoes had not arrived at that time. Most cases coming back in
good condition, but pneumonia cases would not stand the exposure.
Condition at Ust Padenga very uncertain. Lieut. Powers and Lieut.
Taufanoff in charge of ten-bed detention hospital. Advised them to keep
their hospital clear for an emergency.
Action reported on Dvina and hospital captured; later retaken. Slight
action every day or so at Ust Padenga. Lieut. Powers caring for all
civilians in and around that place. Visited one home where I found the
father sick and in adjoining room the corpse of his wife and two
children. In another village I found twenty-four sick in four families;
eight of which were pneumonia cases. In one peasant home, six in family,
all sick with a child of eight years running a fever, but trying to care
for others. All sleeping in the same room; three on the floor and
balance together in a loft made by laying boards between the sills. They
informed me that no food had been cooked for them for three days. The
child eight years old was then trying to make some tea. This same room
was used as a dining room and kitchen. It had double windows, all sealed
air-tight.
next
Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali,"
which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the
fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature
of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital but lay in
their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth day
out all the "flu" medicines were exhausted.
It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of
hospitals.
On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital,
such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into
old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double
decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If
lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death
stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed.
The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come to
this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a dread disease in a strange
and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them died and the wonder is that
more men did not die. What stamina and courage the American soldier
showed, to recover in those first dreadful weeks!
No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical
officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,
was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of
the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,
Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein
and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they
performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were
crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.
The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base, was
started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of Major
Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start a
separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been blocked
by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared that it
was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or medical
personnel.
However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in
Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing them
from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by sending
back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters of Major
Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the British and
American red tape, in going through military channels.
At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid of
the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the hospital
from among the officers and men who had been wounded and were recovered
or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy duty on the
fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two American
Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the former later being
one of five American women who, for services in the World War, were
awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.
On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was also
used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was served by
Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley were in
charge of the hospital.
A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola.
A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little
Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been rumor
and more or less open declaration of the British medical authorities
that the Americans would not be permitted to start a hospital of their
own in Archangel. The Russian sisters who owned the building were
interested observers as to the outcome of this clash in authority. It
was settled one morning about ten o'clock in a spectacular manner much
to the satisfaction of the Americans and Russians. Captain Wynn of the
American Red Cross came to the assistance of Captain Hall, supplying the
American flag and helping raise it over the building and dared the
British to take it down. Then he supplied the hospital with beds and
linen and other supplies and comfort bags for the men, dishes, etc. This
little hospital is a haven of rest that appears in the dreams today of
many a doughboy who went through those dismal days of the first month in
Archangel. There they got American treatment and as far as possible food
cooked in American style.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26162
From the "New York Medical Record," October 12, 1918:
THE ORIGIN OF THE SO-CALLED "SPANISH INFLUENZA"
BY JAMES JOSEPH KING, A.B., M.D.
NEW YORK
CAPTAIN MEDICAL CORPS, U. S. ARMY
We desire to present in this preliminary note a
consideration of the similarity of the present epidemic to
the epidemic of pneumonic plague which broke out in
Harbin, China, in October, 1910, and spread rapidly and
continuously throughout Northern China at that time; and
to suggest that this epidemic may be the same disease
modified by racial and topographical differences. The
origin of this epidemic was suggested to the writer soon
after its outbreak in our camps by Mr. Guy M. Walker, an
eminent American authority on Chinese affairs. This
suggestion led to an investigation of the reports of the
pneumonic plague in China and there is sufficient likeness
of that epidemic to the present one prevailing in our
cities and army camps to warrant a consideration of it.
In the latter part of 1910 the pneumonic plague first
appeared in Harbin a town in Manchuria under Chinese
control. Harbin is on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and was
the original hotbed of the disease. The plague had
prevailed in Russia previous to November, 1910, but the
Russians, alert to its danger, took immediate action and
stamped it out. It was believed that the plague was
carried into Harbin by the fur dealers and by the Chinese
laborers returning to their homes to celebrate New Year's
Day, a custom universally observed in China. From Harbin
the plague rapidly spread in all directions, usually
following the lines of traffic along the railroads. It
spread as far south as Chefu, a seaport town, probably
having been carried there by Chinese coolies returning
from the north.
* * * * *
This plague has been very serious. The mortality has been
fearfully high. It has spread throughout China. Wherever
the Chinese coolies from the North have traveled they have
carried this disease. From 1910 up to 1917 China has not
been free from it. The writer has heard of several cases
being present in Peking last year.
In the early part of 1917, about 200,000 Chinese coolies,
collected from the northern part of China, where the
pneumonic plague has raged at intervals since 1910, were
sent to France as laborers. Part of them were sent around
through the Mediterranean; some, perhaps the majority,
were sent across the Pacific, and then through Canada and
America, to be transported across the Atlantic to France.
Trainloads of these coolies were sent in solid trains
across the United States to New York and thence to France.
They made splendid laborers in France, and were in back of
the lines during the German drive of March, 1918. No doubt
many of them were captured by the Germans at that time.
Hence the outbreak of it in the German army and its rapid
spread in Spain.
So far as we know, this disease first broke out last
spring, in the German army, where it is said to have been
very serious. We next heard of it in Spain, hence the name
Spanish influenza. The name is really a misnomer, but it
has stuck probably because it is the first epidemic of
influenza that Spain has ever had. Since our soldiers and
sailors have been returning from the battlefields of
France it has become very prevalent and serious in our
camps and cities all over this country.
* * * * *
... It seems possible that the _Bacillus pestis_ may have
been present in a non-virulent state in the Chinese
coolies, and assumed new virulence, vigor, and a somewhat
different form, when transplanted into virgin soil. The
high mortality and infectivity of this epidemic strongly
suggest it.
On this basis the epidemics which have followed all great
wars may be explained. If a nation or tribe can survive
any disease long enough it will acquire immunity to that
disease. When, however, foreign people commingle freely
and intimately, as in war, epidemics will break out. The
inactive, non-virulent organisms in one race will become
virulent in some other race which has not acquired
immunity to that specific organism.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/0/9/11094/11094-8.txt
CHARIVARIA.
The spread of influenza is said to be greatly assisted by
"germ-carriers." We can't think why germs should be carried. Let
'em walk.
***
A man charged at the Guildhall with being drunk said he was suffering
from an attack of influenza and had taken some whisky. Yes, but where
from?
***
We understand that the heading, "Whisky for Influenza," which appeared
in a daily paper the other day, misled a great number of sufferers,
who at once wrote to say that they were prepared to make the exchange.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11571/11571-8.txt
Spain has rendered herself unpleasantly conspicuous by developing and
exporting a new form of influenza, and a Spanish astrologer predicts the
end of the world in a few months' time. But we are not going to allow those
petty distractions to take our minds off the War. Here we may note that
Baron Burian's recent message indicates that but for the War everything
would be all right in Austria
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8warm10.txt
A Salvation Army woman Envoy sailed for France with a party of
Salvationists about the time that the epidemic of influenza broke out all
over the world. Even before the steamer reached the quarantine station in
New York harbor a number of cases of Spanish influenza had developed among
the several companies of soldiers who were aboard, a number of whom were
removed from the ship. So anxious were others of these American fighting
men to reach Prance that they hid away until the steamer had left port.
Land was hardly out of sight before more cases of the disease were
reported--so many, in fact, that special hospital accommodations had to be
immediately arranged. The ship's captain after consulting with the
American military officers, requested the Salvation Army Envoy to take
entire responsibility for the hospital, which responsibility, after some
hesitation, she accepted. Under her were two nurses, three dieticians
(Y.M.C.A. and Red Cross), a medical corps sergeant (U.S.A.), and twenty-
four orderlies. She took charge on the fourth day of a thirteen day
voyage, working in the sick bay from 12 noon to 8 P.M., and from 12
midnight to 8 A.M. every day
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16541/16541-h/16541-h.htm
Donald MacRae was far gone. His son needed no M.D. to tell him that. He burned with a high fever which had consumed his flesh and strength in its furnace. His eyes gleamed unnaturally, with no light of recognition for either his son or Dolly Ferrara. And there was a peculiar tinge to the old man's lips that chilled young MacRae, the mark of the Spanish flu in its deadliest manifestation. It made him ache to see that gray head shift from side to side, to listen to the incoherent babble, to mark the feeble shiftings of the nervous hands.
For a terrible half hour he endured the sight of his father struggling for breath, being racked by spasms of coughing. Then the reaction came and the sick man slept,?not a healthy, restful sleep; it was more like the dying stupor of exhaustion. Young MacRae knew that.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22523/22523-h/22523-h.htm
Visited civilian hospitals Nov. 16th, which were in a most horrible
state. No ventilation and practically all with Spanish influenza and, in
addition, many with gangrenous wounds. Tried to enlighten the Russian
doctor in charge with the fact that fresh air would be beneficial to his
cases. But he seemed to think I was entirely out of my sphere and
ignored what I said. I reported the situation to British headquarters
and thereafter he reluctantly did as I suggested. Then arranged with
headquarters to send Russian medical officer and felchers with American
medical officers out to villages where assistance was needed most,
instructing each to impress on the natives the necessity of fresh air
and proper hygiene. They found there was such a shortage of the proper
kind of food that the people had no resistance against disease, and were
dying by the hundreds. In the meantime established annex to civilian
hospital in a school building. Had wooden beds made and placed felchers
in charge.
Tried to segregate cases in Shenkursk and immediate vicinity as much as
possible. After getting everything in working order I found a shortage
of doctors. So I proceeded to villages not yet reached by others. Report
from Ust Padenga that Lieut. Cuff and fourteen enlisted men killed or
missing on patrol Nov. 29th; some of the bodies recovered.
Weather growing colder. Twenty degrees below zero, with snow four inches
deep. Evacuated sick and wounded from Ust Padenga eighteen versts beyond
Shenkursk in sleds filled with hay and blankets necessary for warmth.
Shakleton shoes had not arrived at that time. Most cases coming back in
good condition, but pneumonia cases would not stand the exposure.
Condition at Ust Padenga very uncertain. Lieut. Powers and Lieut.
Taufanoff in charge of ten-bed detention hospital. Advised them to keep
their hospital clear for an emergency.
Action reported on Dvina and hospital captured; later retaken. Slight
action every day or so at Ust Padenga. Lieut. Powers caring for all
civilians in and around that place. Visited one home where I found the
father sick and in adjoining room the corpse of his wife and two
children. In another village I found twenty-four sick in four families;
eight of which were pneumonia cases. In one peasant home, six in family,
all sick with a child of eight years running a fever, but trying to care
for others. All sleeping in the same room; three on the floor and
balance together in a loft made by laying boards between the sills. They
informed me that no food had been cooked for them for three days. The
child eight years old was then trying to make some tea. This same room
was used as a dining room and kitchen. It had double windows, all sealed
air-tight.
next
Before half the perilous and tedious voyage was completed, the dreaded
Spanish influenza broke out on three of the ships. On the "Somali,"
which is typical of the three ships, every available bed was full on the
fifth day out at sea. Congestion was so bad that men with a temperature
of only 101 or 102 degrees were not put into the hospital but lay in
their hammocks or on the decks. To make matters worse, on the eighth day
out all the "flu" medicines were exhausted.
It was a frantic medical detachment that paced the decks of those three
ships for two days and nights after the ships arrived in the harbor of
Archangel while preparations were being made for the improvisation of
hospitals.
On the 6th of September they debarked in the rain at Bakaritza. About
thirty men could be accommodated in the old Russian Red Cross Hospital,
such as it was, dirt and all. The remainder were temporarily put into
old barracks. What "flu"-weakened soldier will ever forget those double
decked pine board beds, sans mattress, sans linen, sans pillows? If
lucky, a man had two blankets. He could not take off his clothes. Death
stalked gauntly through and many a man died with his boots on in bed.
The glory of dying in France to lie under a field of poppies had come to
this drear mystery of dying in Russia under a dread disease in a strange
and unlovely place. Nearly a hundred of them died and the wonder is that
more men did not die. What stamina and courage the American soldier
showed, to recover in those first dreadful weeks!
No attempt is made to fasten blame for this upon the American medical
officers, nor upon the British for that matter. Many a soldier, though,
was wont to wish that Major Longley had not himself been nearly dead of
the disease when the ships arrived. To the credit of Adjutant Kiley,
Captains Hall, Kinyon, Martin and Greenleaf and Lieutenants Lowenstein
and Danzinger and the enlisted medical men, let it be said that they
performed prodigies of labor trying to serve the sick men who were
crowded into the five hastily improvised hospitals.
The big American Red Cross Hospital, receiving hospital at the base, was
started at Archangel November 22nd by Captain Pyle under orders of Major
Longley. The latter had been striving for quite a while to start a
separate receiving hospital for American wounded, but had been blocked
by the British medical authorities in Archangel. They declared that it
was not feasible as the Americans had no equipment, supplies or medical
personnel.
However, the officer in charge of the American Red Cross force in
Archangel offered to supply the needed things, either by purchasing them
from the stores of British medical supplies in Archangel or by sending
back to England for them. It is said that the repeated letters of Major
Longley to SOS in England somehow were always tangled in the British and
American red tape, in going through military channels.
At last Major Longley took the bull by the horns and accepted the aid of
the Red Cross and selected and trained a personnel to run the hospital
from among the officers and men who had been wounded and were recovered
or partially recovered and were not fit for further heavy duty on the
fighting line. He had the valuable assistance also of the two American
Red Cross nurses, Miss Foerster and Miss Gosling, the former later being
one of five American women who, for services in the World War, were
awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal.
On September 10th, we opened the first Red Cross Hospital which was also
used in connection with the Russian Red Cross Hospital and was served by
Russian Red Cross nurses. Captain Hall and Lieutenant Kiley were in
charge of the hospital.
A few days later an infirmary was opened for the machine gunners and
Company "C" of the engineers at Solombola.
A good story goes in connection with this piece of history of the little
Red Cross hospital on Troitsky near Olga barracks. There had been rumor
and more or less open declaration of the British medical authorities
that the Americans would not be permitted to start a hospital of their
own in Archangel. The Russian sisters who owned the building were
interested observers as to the outcome of this clash in authority. It
was settled one morning about ten o'clock in a spectacular manner much
to the satisfaction of the Americans and Russians. Captain Wynn of the
American Red Cross came to the assistance of Captain Hall, supplying the
American flag and helping raise it over the building and dared the
British to take it down. Then he supplied the hospital with beds and
linen and other supplies and comfort bags for the men, dishes, etc. This
little hospital is a haven of rest that appears in the dreams today of
many a doughboy who went through those dismal days of the first month in
Archangel. There they got American treatment and as far as possible food
cooked in American style.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26162
From the "New York Medical Record," October 12, 1918:
THE ORIGIN OF THE SO-CALLED "SPANISH INFLUENZA"
BY JAMES JOSEPH KING, A.B., M.D.
NEW YORK
CAPTAIN MEDICAL CORPS, U. S. ARMY
We desire to present in this preliminary note a
consideration of the similarity of the present epidemic to
the epidemic of pneumonic plague which broke out in
Harbin, China, in October, 1910, and spread rapidly and
continuously throughout Northern China at that time; and
to suggest that this epidemic may be the same disease
modified by racial and topographical differences. The
origin of this epidemic was suggested to the writer soon
after its outbreak in our camps by Mr. Guy M. Walker, an
eminent American authority on Chinese affairs. This
suggestion led to an investigation of the reports of the
pneumonic plague in China and there is sufficient likeness
of that epidemic to the present one prevailing in our
cities and army camps to warrant a consideration of it.
In the latter part of 1910 the pneumonic plague first
appeared in Harbin a town in Manchuria under Chinese
control. Harbin is on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, and was
the original hotbed of the disease. The plague had
prevailed in Russia previous to November, 1910, but the
Russians, alert to its danger, took immediate action and
stamped it out. It was believed that the plague was
carried into Harbin by the fur dealers and by the Chinese
laborers returning to their homes to celebrate New Year's
Day, a custom universally observed in China. From Harbin
the plague rapidly spread in all directions, usually
following the lines of traffic along the railroads. It
spread as far south as Chefu, a seaport town, probably
having been carried there by Chinese coolies returning
from the north.
* * * * *
This plague has been very serious. The mortality has been
fearfully high. It has spread throughout China. Wherever
the Chinese coolies from the North have traveled they have
carried this disease. From 1910 up to 1917 China has not
been free from it. The writer has heard of several cases
being present in Peking last year.
In the early part of 1917, about 200,000 Chinese coolies,
collected from the northern part of China, where the
pneumonic plague has raged at intervals since 1910, were
sent to France as laborers. Part of them were sent around
through the Mediterranean; some, perhaps the majority,
were sent across the Pacific, and then through Canada and
America, to be transported across the Atlantic to France.
Trainloads of these coolies were sent in solid trains
across the United States to New York and thence to France.
They made splendid laborers in France, and were in back of
the lines during the German drive of March, 1918. No doubt
many of them were captured by the Germans at that time.
Hence the outbreak of it in the German army and its rapid
spread in Spain.
So far as we know, this disease first broke out last
spring, in the German army, where it is said to have been
very serious. We next heard of it in Spain, hence the name
Spanish influenza. The name is really a misnomer, but it
has stuck probably because it is the first epidemic of
influenza that Spain has ever had. Since our soldiers and
sailors have been returning from the battlefields of
France it has become very prevalent and serious in our
camps and cities all over this country.
* * * * *
... It seems possible that the _Bacillus pestis_ may have
been present in a non-virulent state in the Chinese
coolies, and assumed new virulence, vigor, and a somewhat
different form, when transplanted into virgin soil. The
high mortality and infectivity of this epidemic strongly
suggest it.
On this basis the epidemics which have followed all great
wars may be explained. If a nation or tribe can survive
any disease long enough it will acquire immunity to that
disease. When, however, foreign people commingle freely
and intimately, as in war, epidemics will break out. The
inactive, non-virulent organisms in one race will become
virulent in some other race which has not acquired
immunity to that specific organism.
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/0/9/11094/11094-8.txt
CHARIVARIA.
The spread of influenza is said to be greatly assisted by
"germ-carriers." We can't think why germs should be carried. Let
'em walk.
***
A man charged at the Guildhall with being drunk said he was suffering
from an attack of influenza and had taken some whisky. Yes, but where
from?
***
We understand that the heading, "Whisky for Influenza," which appeared
in a daily paper the other day, misled a great number of sufferers,
who at once wrote to say that they were prepared to make the exchange.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11571/11571-8.txt
Spain has rendered herself unpleasantly conspicuous by developing and
exporting a new form of influenza, and a Spanish astrologer predicts the
end of the world in a few months' time. But we are not going to allow those
petty distractions to take our minds off the War. Here we may note that
Baron Burian's recent message indicates that but for the War everything
would be all right in Austria
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8warm10.txt
A Salvation Army woman Envoy sailed for France with a party of
Salvationists about the time that the epidemic of influenza broke out all
over the world. Even before the steamer reached the quarantine station in
New York harbor a number of cases of Spanish influenza had developed among
the several companies of soldiers who were aboard, a number of whom were
removed from the ship. So anxious were others of these American fighting
men to reach Prance that they hid away until the steamer had left port.
Land was hardly out of sight before more cases of the disease were
reported--so many, in fact, that special hospital accommodations had to be
immediately arranged. The ship's captain after consulting with the
American military officers, requested the Salvation Army Envoy to take
entire responsibility for the hospital, which responsibility, after some
hesitation, she accepted. Under her were two nurses, three dieticians
(Y.M.C.A. and Red Cross), a medical corps sergeant (U.S.A.), and twenty-
four orderlies. She took charge on the fourth day of a thirteen day
voyage, working in the sick bay from 12 noon to 8 P.M., and from 12
midnight to 8 A.M. every day
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16541/16541-h/16541-h.htm
Donald MacRae was far gone. His son needed no M.D. to tell him that. He burned with a high fever which had consumed his flesh and strength in its furnace. His eyes gleamed unnaturally, with no light of recognition for either his son or Dolly Ferrara. And there was a peculiar tinge to the old man's lips that chilled young MacRae, the mark of the Spanish flu in its deadliest manifestation. It made him ache to see that gray head shift from side to side, to listen to the incoherent babble, to mark the feeble shiftings of the nervous hands.
For a terrible half hour he endured the sight of his father struggling for breath, being racked by spasms of coughing. Then the reaction came and the sick man slept,?not a healthy, restful sleep; it was more like the dying stupor of exhaustion. Young MacRae knew that.