“I had a little bird
And its name was Enza
I opened the window
And in-flew-Enza”
Between 1918 and 1919, a particularly deadly strain of influenza took more lives than any war fought in the 20th century.
Considered by many as the most devastating epidemic recorded in world history, the virus, nicknamed the “Spanish Flu” or “La Grippe” was a global disaster, killing somewhere between 20 to 40 million people in just that one year.
The earliest known case of the Spanish Flu was recorded in Fort Riley, Kansas on March 11, 1918. Within two days of that first case, over 500 men at the camp came down with the same illness.
Before the year was out, over 675,000 Americans would succumb to the virus. The microscopic terror had enveloped the globe within four months. World-wide it is estimated that between 25 and 70 million people (16 million from India alone) died before the virus disappeared in 1919.
People who did not even exhibit symptoms were suddenly stuck down, becoming too weak to walk within hours, many dying within days.
Unusual for most influenza strains, the 1918 strain attacked young, healthy soldiers instead of preying on the young, the old, and the weak. It was because of this peculiar deviation that many people of the time believed the world was coming to an end.
Most common strains of influenza attack the nose, throat and rarely the lungs. The infection usually lasts for about a week. Most people recover within one to two weeks without requiring any medical treatment.
Symptoms of the 1918 strain of influenza were much more serious and included a blue tint to the skin on the face caused by heliotrope cyanosis and coughing up blood. Bronchial pneumonia and septicemic blood poisoning were also common symptoms, often appearing shortly before death.
The reason the 1918 strain was so destructive was because of a mutation to its protein coat. Every year various viruses mutate in what is known as an “antigenic drift”. The reason for this is simple: survival. If a virus can change itself enough, it can both avoid detection and infect people who might have already developed antibodies to their old version. It is this mutating that allows the flu virus to attack the human population every year, even with flu vaccinations readily available. Mutations are also what allows the HIV virus to adapt to drugs being used to kill it.
Attempts at destroying or containing the 1918 strain included dousing the streets with various chemicals and keeping students home from school for months at a time. In the end, no human intervention made much of a difference.
It is not commonly understood why the virus self-destructed in 1919. Perhaps this is why, in the mid 1990’s, scientists in the United States Army began to reconstruct the deadly virus by introducing genes from the 1918 strain into the more common (and typically harmless) flu strains that exist around the world today.
Tests conducted recently on lab mice have proven that the 1918 strain is as deadly as ever. By harnessing a live version of the previously dead virus, scientists hope to be able to create an antiviral medication to combat the virus if it should ever happen to reappear on its own.
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