The "The Malady Of All Empires" Story

Rossmere sanatorium near my home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

It was an ordinary day.  Recalling with my wife the times my parents would take my brother and I on Sunday afternoon rides and happen to past the Rossmere sanatorium in Manheim Township.  We lived about a mile from the place and were warned by both mom and dad to stay away from it.  

Residents of the sanatorium get fresh air while in their beds.

The building was opened as a hotel in 1898, but became a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1925 to treat those with the infectious disease known as TB that could be lethal.  Eventually the place closed, but I will never forget the warning given by my parents about staying away from the place.  The rides past the place with patients laying in beds on the porch of the place was scary to a young boy.  But, that was nothing compared to the "KILLLER FLU" that arrived by way of Fort Rile, Kansas 100 years ago this winter.  

Influenza victims crowd into an emergency hospital
near Fort Riley, Kanas in 1918.

Ground Zero for what was the world's deadliest influenza pandemic began inconspic- uously.  It was said to have began with poor farmers who were drafted for World War I and reported for duty at Fort Rile.  These farm boys struggled to do their daily chores of slopping pigs, feeding cattle, horses and chickens while living in cramped, uninsulated quarters.  Then the virus somehow arrived!  

Corpsmen in caps and gowns ready to attend patients in the
influenza ward of the U.S. Naval Hospital on
Mare Island, California on December 10, 1918.

It mutated as the men coughed and sneezed, spreading germs in the Army barracks; then on trains across the nation and on ships to Europe.  Within six to nine months the flu had killed at least 20 million people worldwide.  Some reports I read listed the number of dead at 40 million.  It was never documented which Kansas farm it all began on, but the farm probably was located in what is now the ghost town known a Santa Fe.  

Convalescing influenza patients, isolated due to an over-
crowded hospital, stay at the U.S. Army's Eberts Field
facilities in Lonoke, Arcansas, in 1918.

Local Dr. Loring Miner, who practiced in Haskell County, was the first to report to Public Health Reports of the killer flu.  It kept building in strength for months.  Troops were trained at Fort Rile and sent by train to board ships bound for war; many of them had flu-like symptoms.  Along the way the virus mutated over and over.  

An emergency hospital set up in Brookline, Massachusetts,
to care for influenza cases, photographed in October of 1918.

We gave the virus to our Allies who in turn gave it to our enemies.  Eventually it infected one-third of the world!  Between 50 to 100 MILLION people eventually died.  The 1918 influenza killed more people in 15 months than AIDS has killed in 40 years.  It has resulted in more deaths than the bubonic plague killed in a century.  It was a submicroscopic virus composed of just eight genes that killed more people than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.  

One of the books I found online and read
a few pages describing The Great Influenza
of 1918.  We just celebrated the flu's 100 anniversary.

I read small parts of a few books written on the influenza which cried: British schoolchildren slumped dead at their desks; German furniture vans hauled bodies scattered in streets to the cemeteries.  The flu began as a dull headache or burning eyes, then chills and fever.  Almost all the infected did live with about 2.5% dying from the disease.  This shows you the magnitude of how many were affected if 50 to 100 million died.  Those that died experienced lungs filled with a reddish fluid which caused a hellish cough.  The lips and ears would then turn dark blue and the victim's feet would turn black.  Doctors had no idea what to do to stop it.  Many prescribed aspirin which led to overdoses.  The flu has been with us a lifetime and afflicted each civilization and society all over the world.  

Serbian soldiers are treated for influenza on February 5, 1919,
in Rotterday, Netherlands, at the auxiliary hospital for
Serbians and Portuguese.

Our scientific world has worked for ages to try and solve the flu epidemics that have occurred.  Many vaccines have been developed with some working better than others.  But, to be safe you need to be injected with the vaccine.  Is this something you do yearly?  And, why not if you don't do so?  My wife and I are both over 65 so we get senior double doses to combat the flu.  

Graves of U.S. soldiers who died of influenza in Devon,
England, photographed on March 8k, 1919.  The graves
contained the bodies of 100 American wounded soldiers
at Paignton Military Hospital that died from the epidemic
of influenza that spread over England.

There are many pitfalls in our annual flu vaccina- tions, but is there a better preven- tative measure?  Since that awful time 100 years ago much has been accomp- lished.  I trust what is being done, since I have no other choice.  Same as you.  But, after reading segments recently about the 1918 influenza and how many people it killed, I'll take my chances and get the vaccine.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The U.S. Army 39th regiment wear masks to prevent influenza in Seattle in December of 1918.  The soldiers are on their way to France.

In Sydney, Australia, nurses leave Blackfriars Depot in Chippenedale during the flu epidemic in April of 1919.

Volunteer nurses from the American Red Cross tend to influenza patients in the Oakland Municipal Auditorium used as a temporary hospital in 1918.

Soldiers in the U.S. Military in a hospital in France.

Policemen stand in a street in Seattle, Washington, wearing protective masks made by the Seattle Chapter of the Red Cross, during the influenza epidemic in 1918.

One more book that describes the awful years when the influenza epidemic roamed the world.  It was known as the Malady Of All Empires.