The Spanish flu - the biggest pandemic in modern history

The 1918 flu epidemic, also known as the great
flu epidemic(流行病) or the Spanish flu, is considered
the worst global pandemic((全国或全球性) 流行病) in history, as it
concentrated a high mortality in a short period
of time. It is estimated that the mortality
rate of the pandemic was between 10% and 20%,
and that it killed between 50 and 100 million
people worldwide. In Spain the number of deaths
is estimated at around 300,000.
Unlike other flu epidemics that primarily
affected children and the elderly, many of
its victims were healthy young people and
adults in their 20s and 40s, as well as animals
such as dogs and cats.
The flu began to spread at the end of World
War I. The media in the countries that participated
in the war were under military censorship,
so they concealed(隐瞒) the pandemic. However, Spain,
being neutral, reported in the press on the
new cases, using names such as "the fever
of three days", "the soldier of Naples" or
"the fashionable disease". It seemed that
Spain was the only country affected. This
is why the disease was known all over the
world as the Spanish flu.
Although by the fall of 1917 the disease had
already occurred in fourteen military camps,
some consider Gilbert Mitchell, a cook at
Fort Riley camp in Kansas, to be a zero patient（零号病人）.
Mitchell entered the morning of March 4, 1918
with fever and headache to the infirmary（医务室） and
a few hours later there were more than a hundred
cases under treatment, so they had to set
up a hangar（机库） to care for patients.
The symptoms of this disease were high fever,
earache, body fatigue（疲劳）, diarrhoea（腹泻） and occasional
vomiting, and sometimes breathing difficulties
and nosebleeds. Most of the people who died
were the result of secondary bacterial pneumonia（肺炎）,
as antibiotics were not available. However,
one group died quickly after the first symptoms
appeared in as little as two or three days.
By mid-April 1918, the flu was already raging（肆虐）
in the trenches of Western Europe. He passed
from France to Great Britain, Italy, and came
to Spain. Even King Alfonso XIII became ill,
and the Spanish newspapers echoed the disease,
which was spreading so alarmingly.
As can be seen in this graph, most fatalities（死亡）
fell in just 13 weeks, from September to mid-December
1918, in what is known as the second wave.
The poorest people and populations suffered
the consequences of this flu in a special
way, but it also affected governors such as
the president of the United States Woodrow
Wilson, the British Prime Minister Lloyd George,
or Kaiser Guillermo. The painter Edvard Munch
even captured it in a self-portrait and others
like Gustav Klimt did not survive the disease.
All the newspapers of the moment collected
advertisements with miraculous（奇迹般地） remedies. The
elixirs（长生不老药）, medicinal waters, tonics（补品） and other remedies stand out.
Doctors at the time recommended aspirin (in
doses now considered counterproductive（反作用的）), quinine（奎宁，金鸡纳霜(常用于治疗疟疾)）,
prepared with arsenic（砷）, camphor oil（樟脑油） or castor
oil（蓖麻油）. Some even encouraged people to smoke
thinking that inhaling smoke killed germs.
Different medical publications of the time,
available in the Hispanic digital library,
attempted to respond to the causes of the
epidemic and reported on its progress and consequences.
An Italian scientist, Professor Sacone, claimed
to have isolated the germ that caused the
disease, but time proved it was not true.
The strain of the virus causing the Spanish
flu (AH1N1) was not discovered until 1943,
and its genetic sequence was not determined until 2005.
Every day, Spanish newspapers picked up on(注意到)
the importance of hygiene(卫生) education and how
this task was carried out in Germany from
schools and pupils, making the number of
flu deaths before the war the lowest in all of Europe.
They also warn that patients who do not experience
any symptoms, the so-called convalescents(康复病人),
can be a focus of spread of the epidemic,
so they recommend keeping them one or two
weeks more in isolation.
The use of cloth masks became mandatory（强制的） for
all those performing public service work.
This measure was a health recommendation made
to the rest of the population to prevent the
disease from spreading so easily.
The more contact there was between people,
the more likely they were to reproduce the
virus. The government is beginning to take
preventive（预防性的） measures to try to stop this crisis.
Theatres, circuses, workshops, factories and
public places are disinfected and some events
are suspended. It is forbidden to import goods
from Morocco. Strangers entering populations are identified.
Tuition and examinations are extended indefinitely,
and rectors（校长） are even given the freedom to
suspend classes if they see fit.
The third and last wave was more benign（良性的）, as
many people were already immunized（免疫）, giving
the pandemic under control in the spring of
1919. And the disease ended on its own. By
the summer of 2020, the virus had disappeared.
While he won the battle against the weakest,
the rest were immunized.