Paste your essay in her Between 1918 and 1920 anywhere from 50 to 100 million lives were lost to the Spanish Influenza. Regardless of the name, Spanish Influenza also known as the Spanish Influenza, it spread worldwide and infected approximately one-third of the world’s population. Due to the time there were no vaccines to help prevent the influenza from spreading. Many doctors were uncertain on how to combat it. Some would use modern laboratory science while others would use traditional methods. This paper will discuss countries medical knowledge leading up to and throughout the Spanish Influenza.
Before continuing with the development of medical advances, and important question needs to be answered. What is the influenza? How is it spread? The influenza is virus is a parasite and has to be within another living organism to survive . The parasite is unable to duplicate by itself meaning it has to infest a host cell and seize control of the “cell’s reproductive apparatus .” An offspring would be created that needs to continue into another living organism causing the spread of influenza. If it did not continue it would pass away within the first living organism that was infected .
The first documented case of the influenza was in Ancient Greece during 412 BC. This time in history did not have a good knowledge of how diseases came about and used many traditional methods. When the influenza hit Ancient Greece, the people believed that it was a punishment from the gods. The doctors were “part-priest, part-magician ” and it was believed that a cure would be from the use of prayer, spells and sacrifices . A Greek physician, Hippocrates, created the theory of the four humours. The four humours are the four liquids within the body. They are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood . An example of the traditional medicine used during this time was the use of eating citrus fruit. According to Hippocrates, if a person was lethargic this was due to the amount of phlegm in the body and eating citrus fruit would help . 500 years later a physician who practiced medicine in the Roman Empire, Galen, developed Hippocrates theory further. Galen’s theory was that a person’s temperament was determined by an imbalance between the four humours . Through the four humours a doctor could figure out a person’s health, personality, and behavior. These two theories dominated the medical field for thousands of years. Galen himself had lived through the Antonine Plague that and documented it. The Antonine Plague had occurred in the Roman Empire between 165 AD and 180 AD. Galen used the four humours as a basis of his findings, recording black bile and blood from victims of the Antonine plague .
The fourteenth century began and so did the Bubonic plague, also known as the Black Plague, throughout Europe. Approximately 20 million deaths which equivalated to about one-third of the population were a result of the bubonic plague. Once again, the Black Plague made people begin questioning their religion. They believed that they were getting punished for some act they had done. Since they did not understand the disease, the country thought that they were getting punished for something they did. So, the only logical way the citizens of Europe could think of to rid the country of the plague was to purge their communities of trouble makers, specific groups like the Jewish were singled out. Merchants at this time were often infected first due to their contact with good. The merchants there were Jewish were less affected, than if they were Catholic. It was believed that the Jewish were the cause of the widespread disease. The reason many were not being affected by the Black Plague was due to their religious beliefs which had strong rules about cleanliness. There were many traditional methods used to try and stop it from spreading. Gilles Li Muisis was a chronicler that believed if a slight amount of wine was drank every day then they would not die . The second “cure” was the idea to live inside of a sewer. Since it had not yet been discovered that rats were the cause of the spreading plague, people believed that if they were to live with the filth they would not get sick . Many believed that smells were also the cause of the plague so to help “cure” themselves they would avoid any food that would smell bad if expired. These smelly foods consisted of milk, cheese, and meat, and the safe foods to consume were eggs, fruits and vegetables . These traditional methods had failed to stop the spread of the Bubonic Plague. It was not until 1530 that a “wizard” by the name of Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus, had found methods to help combat the spread . He suggested many sanitation efforts such as removing dead bodies off the streets, removing soiled linens, boiling drinking water, bathing, and getting outside for some fresh air . None of these methods were per se a cure, but they did help decrease the spread. It paved the way for the treatment of plagues in the future by setting a standard for sanitation.
The study of modern laboratory science in America began in 1876 by William Henry Welch. Welch was not a trained doctor, he learned from his father who was . He would continue to study medicine in Germany since their medical knowledge was far greater then in America . Welch returned back to America in 1878 and began teaching at Bellevue medical school . He was hired to teach a laboratory course and was provided with three classrooms that only held tables. There was no laboratory equipment such as microscopes, glassware, etc. . His class became very popular with eager students that wanted to learn about new medicine techniques. The germ theory was created by many researchers and philosophers, Robert Koch, a German doctor, was the man who proved the theory to be correct. The germ theory is “that minute living organisms invaded the body, multiplied, and caused disease, and that a specific germ caused a specific disease.” There were believed to be three germ theories: miasma, filth theory, and chemical-process triggered . Germ theory helped Koch discover tubercle bacillus, in 1882, which is the cause of tuberculosis . This began the research of bacteriology within laboratory testing and spiked even more interest in medical research . With an increasing number of students who wished to study medicine, schools had to grow, others had to be built, and standards for admission had to be created. In 1904, the American Medical Association formed the Council on Medical Education . Prior to the creation of the council, medical students would follow around local doctors along with one semester of lecture hours . It was believed that more than 75% of medical schools needed to be closed due to not living up the standards set in place by the Council of Medical Education. By 1907, approximately 100 medical schools had either closed or merged . This had a positive effect on the schools due to the number of schools that now needed funding. A Class B medical school, like Yale, could now receive new resources and become a Class A . The John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health was created with the intention to research epidemic diseases and other illnesses .
In February 1918, the country-side town of Haskell, Kansas had the first documented case of the Spanish Influenza. Most residents of Haskell had survived that wave of the influenza, the people they came in contact with from outside of the town were not as lucky. In 1918, America was still fighting World War I. Not far from Haskell, Kansas was Camp Funston, an encampment for soldiers . Since it was an airborne disease, it spread quickly and killed quickly. The soldiers during the war were always moving from base to base. The infected men would infect others and soon the influenza spread across the country and then even further to across the world . Birds, pigs, and people are the three main factors needed to spread an influenza quickly. It begins when the birds carry the virus then pass it on to pigs that eventually pass it on to people. At times of war, the encampments were often feed livestock from local farmers, and most of that livestock was infected. Although the citizens of America could tell that there was an epidemic the newspapers did not reflect it. In 1917, a morale law was passed stating “you could receive twenty years in jail if you choose to “utter, print, write or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the government of the United States” . This created fear within the reporters about publishing anything about the Spanish Influenza since it was not cheerful and would show that America was not as perfect as they seemed . May 22, 1918 Spain released a statement regarding the influenza that was spreading quickly . Not even a week later eight million citizens were infected . The next city that the Spanish Influenza spread to was London in July of 1918. Within the first week the influenza had claimed 287 lives . With no end to the war in sight and men overseas dying at a rapid pace from the Spanish Influenza, more men were drafted to war. The White House had made no attempt to help the combat against the influenza . Provost Marshal Enoch Crowder ended up canceling two drafts, the first being on September 26, 1918 . That draft was supposed to ship one hundred and fourth-two thousand men to the barracks overseas . The ships that were already on the sea headed towards the war turned into “death ships” due to the number of infected onboard . The men who passed away on board were buried at sea, while the rest of the healthy men were quarantined . The quarantined failed from infecting the rest of the crew due to the shared dining space and hallways taken to get there . More lives were lost during WWI to the Spanish Influenza then by combat. The beginning of summer 1918, the Spanish influenza seemed to dwindle, but soon returned in August. It returned in three different locations; Freetown in Sierra Leone, Boston in America, and Brest in France . From those locations the influenza continued to spread and claim thousands of lives. Once World War I ended in November the number of infected citizens decreased, up until December 1918 when the second wave had ended . Australia was unaffected by the Spanish Influenza due to a country wide quarantine. In January 1919, Australian officials lifted the quarantine . This proved to have occurred to early when 12,000 Australian citizens had been killed by the third wave of the Spanish Influenza . From Australia, to New York, and back to Paris, the third wave was back and was causing destruction once again.
Due to the varying symptoms of this epidemic, a cure was almost impossible to find. Symptoms that were shown in America were not shown in Europe . Worldwide, doctors and scientist were racing to find a cure. In an attempt to find one, scientist in America came up with three questions that needed to be answered in order to find a cure. The first question was how did the epidemiology of this influenzas work ? Without creating a cure for typhoid, yellow fever and malaria scientist had an understanding on how to control them due to understanding the epidemiology . The second question that needed an answer was the pathology. Pathology is the study of what an influenza does within a body . The last question that scientist aimed to answer was what pathogen and microorganism was causing this influenza . Prior to researching those questions, scientist previously knew a few details about the influenza. It was a “crowd disease” and spread easily within crowds, could be spread by someone infected already, and was not only spread by the air but also by contact of the mouth or nose . Doctors in America were trying everything to find a cure such as providing aspirin for pain, and codeine for coughing . Vaccines developed for typhoid and malaria were used in hopes of it strengthening the immune system, but often did not work . In Greece, a doctor created blisters with mustard plasters, drained the liquid and mixed it with morphine, strychnine, and caffeine then implant it back into the patient . In Britain a published article by the War Office recommended ideas for therapy, “for sleep, twenty grains of bromide, opiates to relax cough, and oxygen for cyanosis” . This proved to be the most definitive guidance given to the ill. Each country affected by the Spanish Influenzas had different ideas about how a cure would be created. Those ideas were mainly used within hospitals on the patients that could actually be seen by a doctor. The sick would wait outside hospitals hoping for treatment, but they were too understaffed and did not have enough supplies to treat everyone . Hundreds of millions of people were never seen by a doctor and stayed at home attempting traditional methods. A few attempted were camphor and garlic worn as a necklace, gargling with cleansers, and either freezing or overheating their homes . These attempts did little to help the fight against the Spanish influenza.
Once the Spanish Influenza passed, the research continued. Scientist were previously working in solitary and could not bounce ideas off anyone else. This led to new conferences to be created, that scientist would attend to discuss diseases, how they began and how the spread . Scientists were working on ways to isolate the bacteria from the Spanish Influenza . It was not until the late 20th to early 21st century that true breakthrough happened with the medical community in combating diseases. To this day research is continuously being done to discover more cures and ways to combat diseases.
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