1910's Medicine and Health | The Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919

A Little Bird.

America was still at war on 27 August 1918 when two sailors reported to sick bay at Common-wealth Pier in Boston. By 31 August the Navy Receiving Ship had 106 flu cases. In September an estimated eighty-five thousand people in Massachusetts had contracted the disease, and hundreds died of flu and pneumonia. Little girls at school in Massachusetts jumped rope to a new ditty at recess, not knowing that within the coming month seven hundred people would die in Philadelphia in a single day:

I had a little bird
And its name was Enza.
I opened the window
And in-flew-Enza.

The Terrible Pandemic.

In early May of 1918 news coming from Madrid told of a mysterious malady that was raging through Spain in the form of what was often called "the grippe." Symptoms included much sneezing, reddening and running of the eyes and nose, chills followed by a fever of 101 to...