Just Finished Reading: Pale Rider – The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney (FP: 2017) [295pp] 

At first, they thought it was just the Flu, something ordinary, something familiar no matter how annoying. Anyway, there was a war on so a few sniffles, a few sick men was neither here nor there. There was no way in hell that they could quarantine a port or stop the troop ships sailing to France. The fate of the West was at stake. Even when the sick began to overwhelm the medics and soldiers, young, fit, men began to die in ever greater numbers the trains still picked up the apparently heathy from the training camps and crammed them into transports. As the outbreak spread across war-torn Europe it hit the Germans HARD. After 4 years of war and the effects of the British naval blockade both the soldiers and civilians were using up their last reserves of just about everything.  

When the war finally ended and soldiers began returning home – including millions of prisoners of war long held in unhealthy camps – the ‘Spanish’ flu (so-called because of its early reports in uncensored Spanish newspapers) spread across the world. The mortality rate varied widely but was generally agreed upon as roughly 2% overall. This doesn’t seem very much, but 2% was around 50-100 million dead across the globe. The rather large range estimate reflects the lack of records, the fact that the number of dead in Russia (which was going through the start of its Civil War at the time) might never be known, the number of Indian dead (likewise) may never be known because of lax record keeping in that British ‘protectorate’ and China was in a state of political and civil upheaval and this, probably, is where the majority of the deaths occurred. The flu killed more than the Great War and possibly killed more than the Second World War that followed it. At the top of the estimate figures it is even conceivable that the Spanish flu killed more people than BOTH World Wars combined. The death toll was far from being evenly distributed. Whilst New York suffered 0.5% deaths Rio suffered three times as many at 1.6%. Zamora in Spain doubled that at 3% whilst Gujarat in India doubled that again at 6%. Worst was to come in isolated communities such as Bristol Bay in Alaska that suffered 40% mortality. 

Interestingly, the Spanish flu had numerous similarities to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Governments played down its impact (in this case so as not to ‘undermine the war effort’), argued about the cause and exactly where it came from. This was especially problematic at the time because viruses were essentially theoretical in 1918. Some cities in the US or countries elsewhere instituted basic public health measures like social distancing, masks, the closing of schools and stopping of public gatherings. Other places did not, or only did so half-heartedly. Once the war was over several US cities allowed parades and paid the price in the increased backlog at mortuaries. I did find it especially interesting that there were many reports of long-term impacts of the disease even after people had recovered. Examples of heart damage, fatigue and psychological problems possibly cause by brain damage exploded in the medical records of the time. Loss of smell, temporary loss of colour vision and much else was experienced. So-called ‘Long Covid’ no longer seems in the least as ‘exaggerated’ as some have suggested. 

No longer ‘forgotten’ after our recent experience of global pandemic, the Spanish flu had a significant global impact that is all too often overlooked in the shadow of the Great War. It must have been quite terrifying at the time (again compared to Covid) and I think we can learn quite a bit from the virus itself and how the world coped (and didn’t) with the disease. This was definitely one of the Science/History highlights of the year for me. Not only is it very well written but the author explores far more that the outbreak itself looking at its short-term and long-term impacts of humanity and human history. Fascinating and highly recommended – if you can handle the flashbacks to 2020!