Essay On Spanish Influenza

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War, Politics And The Influenza of 1918-19 In The U.S. Nwosu Lotana J. (A00012936) Mr. Steve Devitt Writing 102 Thursday, 16 March 2010. The Influenza of 1918-1919 which is also known as the ‘Spanish Influenza’ was a deadly disease that wreaked havoc among the human population. The influenza which was said to have killed more than 50 million people occurred while World War I (WWI) was going on.WWI killed about 5 million people, these two events combined made it a time of death for the world. America, which wasn’t the most affected country, was by then a superpower. Looking at the mobilization of soldiers during the war and the political countermeasures taken by the U.S. government we notice how their decisions affected the spread…show more content…
The first noticeable sign of the flu was on March 4th, 1918 in Camp Funston when large group of soldiers staggered into the camp hospital all complaining about headache, fever and other symptoms of the flu, but still this wasn’t unusual in an Army camp, so it still wasn’t a big deal. (Crosby 19). Even when it became very noticeable, the government still insisted “it is just the flu”. The disease began to spread from the military population to the civilian population. An example was when the influenza was reported to have spread from the military population at Camp Devens to the civilian population of Massachusetts (Barry 270). Contact between civilian and military populations also occurred when soldiers left the camps. It was common for troops to visit loved ones who resided nearby towns or to simply to have a drink or a good time at a local pub. Others went away without leave, because they couldn’t stand the conditions of the army camps. These men were more likely to be infected with the influenza than an individual in the general population, increasing the likelihood that the disease would spread in the surrounding areas and it was not unheard of for the civilians to infect the soldiers
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