About This Book:
The epidemic is the truth of nature that cannot be avoided. The World Health Organization says that we have to face it once every 27 years. In this book, you will learn about the Spanish flu pandemic spread in 1918 and which virus caused it. Humans have faced such deadly epidemics many times before. We can also do this. This book will teach you how to do it.
Who should read this summary?
• Whoever wants to know about the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic
• Whoever is scared of the Kovid-19 epidemic
About author:
John M. Barry is an award-winning professor, historian, and author. His books "Rising Tide" and "The Great Influenza" are included in the New YorkTimes bestseller list. Barry has been awarded several awards for his fine work. He has written for Time magazine, Wall Street Journal and many publications.
Now We Start Summary:
Introduction:
The Spanish flu of 1918 has been the most dangerous epidemic in history. In this book, you will know how it started, how it spread and how it ended. In this, you will also learn about the nature of a virus. Where the virus comes from and how humans and animals get caught in it, this book will answer all those questions. This book will teach us some important things about how humans can save themselves by fighting against a deadly epidemic.
Haskell County:
Experts say that the 1918 Spanish flu began in Haskell, Kansas, which is in the United States. Agriculture was the source of income for the people of Haskell. For the people there, their farms, pets and crops were their treasure. Almost every family lovingly cared for their chickens and other pets. There used to be a Dr. in Haskell County. His name was Dr Loring Miner.
From January to February 1918, Dr Loring had an Extra Ordinary Experience. A patient came to him whose symptoms looked like he had the common flu. He had a fast fever, he was coughing continuously and there was a lot of pain in his head and body. But then, strange cases started coming from Copeland, Santa Feke farms.
Dr Loring was convinced that the disease was influenza but he had not seen such serious cases before. Influenza grows rapidly in the body. Dr Loring's 12 patients died due to this. The most surprising thing was that all those patients were quite strong and healthy but still, they could not fight this disease.
Dr Loring committed his life to learn more about this disease. He collected samples of urine, blood and cough of patients, read all his medical books and journals. He even called some of his colleagues for help. He also reported to the US Public Health Service but everyone ignored Dr Loring's talk. Loring people were nervous to see a constantly increasing line of patients. Every day they would just keep looking after them. Don't know how many nights Dr Loring spent awake.
After two months of battling this disease, when the month of March started, this disease suddenly disappeared. The children started going back to school and people started working on their own. Life was normal again, but Dr Loring was immersed in deep anxiety.
Their concern was justified. Influenza had never taken such a serious form. In such a short time, so many people were never infected together. Dr Loring also tried to caution the public health officers, but no one took his words seriously. Meanwhile, the virus was slowly and becoming stronger. It could have ended in Haskell County because the place was a bit isolated and the population there was less. Influenza virus could be destroyed by infecting everyone there, because if all were caught, then there would not be a healthy person left there. But at that time World War I had created panic in the world.
Dean Nielsen Jean was a young soldier in Haskell County. He too became a victim of this disease. Within a week of having a patient infection, the virus can spread outside. Dean was on leave when he got the flu. But after a week he returned to Camp Funston on duty.
John Bottom was also a Soldier of Copeland, Haskell County. He was also hit by pneumonia. In February, Dean also reported for duty at Camp Funston. Camp Funston was on the banks of the Kansas River where 56,000 soldiers were training. On March 4, a young man working as a cook at Camp Funston became ill due to influenza. The number rose to 1,100 in just three weeks. had gone. All the soldiers had to get admitted to the hospital. 237 of them had pneumonia and 38 soldiers had died.
The Swarm:
Evidence was evident that the disease that was spreading in Funston came from Haskell. After coming from Haskell, there was some kind of change in this virus, due to which the situation in Funston had become so bad. When the virus's own If there is a change or shift in genes, it is called a mutation.
However, soldiers from Funston started being sent to other camps in the US and Europe. Viruses have only one purpose, which is to increase in number and spread. But this does not mean that the virus is a simple and very old organism. Like humans and animals, there is also development and progress over time. Viruses are very developed organisms. Now let's talk about the influenza virus.
The influenza virus did not come from humans. It came from original birds. Influenza viruses are present in many strain birds. Influenza attacks the respiratory system of humans. But in birds, he attacks the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, there is a large amount of virus in the faeces of birds. When they fly, their faeces fall into the lake, river and all types of water sources.
The avian virus cannot infect humans from one person to another. It changes or changes first, i.e. it mutates. Sometimes it infects the pigs and then transfers to humans with piglets. Whenever there is a change in a new strain of influenza and it starts infecting humans, it gives rise to an epidemic. The beginning of this epidemic cannot be avoided, it is a part of nature.
Let us now understand the structure of a virus. The virus is like a ball with spikes around it. The virus is made up largely of the membrane. There is RNA inside it, which contains eight genes that tells what the virus is after all. The size of a virus is 1 / 10,000 part of a millimetre.
The spikes around the virus are actually proteins. They are called Hemagglutinin. They have only one task and that is to attack.
Now let's assume that the virus goes inside the respiratory system of a human being. It attacks the cells of the body. There are sialic acid receptors around the cells that Hemagglutinin starts to touch. The structure of hemagglutinin and sialic acid is such that they join together like pieces of a puzzle. As the virus attaches to the cell membrane, hemagglutinin is added to sialic acid.
After this, a hole is formed in the membrane of the cell by which the virus enters the cell. Now the virus covers itself with a bubble. By doing this, it becomes difficult to detect the virus. The virus transforms itself inside the bubble. As they gather while removing socks from the feet, the virus also starts to fold. Scientists call this process uncoating.
Now the virus leaves itself open inside the cell. His bubble and membrane break down and start melting. Because of this, the genes of the virus go inside the nucleus of the cells. These genes replace the cells of cells and replace them. Just like someone forcibly takes the steering wheel of your car.
Now there is complete control of the virus inside the nucleus and he orders the cell to make thousands of virus proteins. They bind to form proteins and viruses.
This process usually takes ten hours. This is the time frame when the virus connects to the cell and starts generating new viruses. Now the cell in which it was started is called the host cell and it explodes. One million viruses start coming out and attacking new cells.
It Begins:
On March 4, the first case of influenza was reported at Camp Funston. On 18 March, new cases were also learned from Camp Greenleaf and Camp Forest in Georgia. In all, influenza epidemics had spread to 24 large army campuses in the US. All the soldiers had become so sick and weak that they could not take training and neither had the strength to fight.
It started in Europe in Brest, France. This was around 10 April when American soldiers reached there. After this camp, the disease spread to many other campuses.
Due to this many people got sick but till now it had not taken a serious form. People were slowly recovering.
By the end of April, influenza had also taken the British Army under its arrest. After some time it reached Paris and Italy. After such a spread, the epidemic was given the name of Spanish flu.
Governments in France, Germany and the United Kingdom prevented the real report from going out. Only the positive report was being shown to the public so that the morale of the soldiers did not break.
However, accurate and correct news was being shown in Spain. Only the Spanish newspapers reported the growing outbreak of influenza. This happened especially when Jan Alphonso XIII himself was infected.
This flu was not taking the name of stoppage and spread to the spreading Portugal and Greece. The whole of Germany was hit by it in June. In July, people from Norway and Denmark started falling ill. Until August, Sweden and Holland also could not remain untouched by this.
29 May, its first case came to light in Bombay. They were seven soldiers who worked in ships and docks. Other government workers also started getting sick. The disease started spreading through the railway route and reached Bombay to Calcutta, Madras, Rangoon and Karachi.
By that time, the virus had spread to Shanghai as well. One writer says that a wave of this virus was rising in China. By September, the virus had made its way to New Zealand and Australia. 30% of Sydney's population had become ill.
Passage
In 1918, the Spanish flu came as a wave (wave), which is normal for an epidemic. Its first wave arose in the spring. At that time, most of the cases were light-hearted and patients were also recovering. Very few people lost their lives. Some health officers said that the virus had ended, but their guess proved completely wrong.
It seemed as if the virus had gone underground for some time. But actually, mutation was happening in it and he was preparing to attack in a big way. Its second wave started in the Autumn season. By that time the virus had become very dangerous and by 1918 it had taken the form of a fatal disease.
Now the question comes, what is the reason for this trend? It is common that a pandemic starts lightly and starts to create havoc in the second wave. After all, how does this happen? Every time the virus goes from one host to another, it becomes even stronger. The virus starts working in creating new viruses, in growing, spreading and in a better way. It becomes more adept at attacking. This incident is called passage.
But the virus also has a limit to attack. It cannot always be strong. When the virus starts infecting in a very efficient way, there comes a time when no new host is found to attack it. At that point, the virus starts destroying itself. After this, the spread of the virus reduces and then it starts to die on its own.
The Pestilence:
The second wave of Spanish flu came in the 1918 Autumn season. Experts believed that the disease that was spreading all over the world was the only influenza. But this virus had become so powerful and such symptoms were coming out which were quite different from the flu. This was proved to be true in more serious cases. Many patients had a lot of pain in the whole body.
Clifford Adams of Philadelphia stated his discomfort saying that "I could not think of anything else. I don't care if I'll be alive or not. Right now my condition, I feel that I am dead. I feel alive because of my breath. ”
Bill Sarod of Washington said, "I don't know the time. Neither I can think in the normal way, nor I can react in the normal way. Every day I get some confusion.
Jose Brown of Illinois said, "My heart was beating so hard that I thought it might not come out of my body." I had a severe fever and felt very cold. My body used to vibrate a lot ”.
It was influenza but many doctors were surprised due to these symptoms. One of them was symptom cyanosis. In this condition, some parts of the body turn blue. A doctor said that cyanosis was a very surprising condition in which fingers, ears, nose, tongue all became dark blue ".
The second shocking symptom was epistaxis or epistaxis. These symptoms were seen in 15% of the patients on the US Army campus.
It was written in the report that when the head of the patient was lowered, blood started coming out of the nose and mouth. Six people were having blood vomiting. Because of this, a patient died due to a lack of blood.
The most shocking thing was that the Spanish flu did not have the same symptom. Even more frightening was that young and healthy people were dying due to this.
Normal flu and pneumonia mostly attack children and old people, but the worst effect of Spanish flu was on healthy people aged 21-30 years. Most of those people were dying who were young.
Due to his age, his immunity was strong, but he still could not fight this dangerous virus. Even the post mortem report did not reveal anything clearly. It was influenza but it had damaged every organ of the body of patients. Heart, brain, kidney, liver were all damaged in one way or the other. But the worst condition was lungs.
A scientist said that viral infection was not a normal thing to have such a bad effect on the lungs. People infected with Spanish flu had wounds in the lungs. It seemed as if they had smelled very poisonous gas. At the time of post mortem, when the lungs are taken out, its air escapes like a balloon. But when the lungs of those patients were removed, they were inflated as if they were full of air. But what came out on the test shook everyone. They were filled with waste of badly damaged cells, not by air. White blood cells, enzymes were scattered all over the place. Blood was spread in the lungs.
This fight between the influenza virus and the immune system occurred in the lungs. Its view was not less than a battleground and nothing was left in that devastation.
Tolling of the bell
This epidemic was spreading so fast that all shops, schools and offices were closed. Roads became completely deserted. The national and local government did not give any information to the public about this disease. It was printed in the newspaper that there is no need to panic.
The government wanted to save the morale of the people, but instead, the fear sat in the minds of the people. People were not fully aware of anything which was adding to their fears. Newspapers were distorting and writing, and no political party had ever accepted the serious threat of influenza.
This virus had become like a predator looking for humans to hunt. Be it cities or villages or small towns, people were dying everywhere. There was no such corner of the world left by this virus.
Most deaths occurred in India. The first wave of the virus was going on in India in the spring season. But in September 1918, the virus wreaked havoc on Bombay again. At that time the bus was packed with corpses. Whenever the train left from somewhere, there were people awake in it, but when they reached the station, they were just full of corpses.
13,190 patients were admitted to a hospital in Delhi. Out of the 7,044 people who lost their lives. The most devastation took place in Punjab. A doctor told that the hospital was so packed that there was no place even to remove the dead body. People were dying on the streets. Woods started falling short to burn the corpses. Now the corpses started being dumped in the river. Due to this, rivers also started filling with corpses. It was estimated that about 20 million people had lost their lives.
Endgame:
Victor was the head of the Disease Department in the Vaughn Army. He said that if the virus continues to spread at this speed, within a few weeks the nomination of human beings will be erased from this world. This virus had now become a threat to human life.
But the truth is that some viruses require humans to stay alive. Measles is one of its templates. When a person is infected with measles once, he becomes immune to it forever, that is, that virus will no longer have any effect on that person's body. Therefore, if no human is found to infect the virus of measles, then it will die on its own.
Experts say that measles requires at least half a million populations that have not been vaccinated and that remain in close contact with the virus so that the virus can stay alive.
But influenza virus is very different from this. Their house is the body of birds. Therefore, they do not need humans to stay alive. Even if not a single person is left alive, the influenza virus will remain alive.
Science and technology made great progress in the 19th century. But man was still helpless in front of this deadly disease. The Spanish flu was not eradicated by any medicine or vaccine, but it ended on its own due to the natural process. Nature failed to do science.
In the last chapter, we talked about the passage and knew that when the virus infects a new host, it becomes more powerful than before. The onset of an epidemic begins with a mild light disease called First Wave and later it takes a frightening form called Second Wave. When this epidemic is in its most dangerous phase, then two natural processes begin. The first is the immunity of our body. When a virus infects a large population, then the people of that group start developing immunity against it. People who have been infected have a very low chance of getting reinfected with the same virus.
In a town or city, the time frame from the first case to the last case is from 6-8 weeks. Because there were more people on the army campus, there was a lot of crowds and there it was 3-4 weeks. Until the virus infects everyone and after doing so, when it does not find a new host, then it dies.
For example, the virus killed 4,597 people in Philadelphia between October 9-16, but very few people fell ill after that and so all public places were reopened on October 26. When the war ended in November11, it felt Like the virus was completely destroyed. Not a new case had come and then it started to end slowly.
The second natural process is that which is inside the virus. This virus of 1918 had become very dangerous and fatal. There was a rapid mutation in it. It is said that when a serious incident occurs, the incident that follows it is not so serious. So during the 1918 Autumn season, this epidemic had taken a very dangerous turn. So now the mutation of the virus started decreasing here and slowly it started to end.
For Example, 20% of the jawans had pneumonia in the 5 large army campuses previously attacked by the influenza virus, of which 37% died. The maximum death was at Camp Sherman, Ohio, where 35% of the soldiers had pneumonia and 61% of them succumbed.
Three weeks later, the last 5 camps were attacked by the virus, in which only 7.1% of the soldiers had pneumonia and 17.8% of them died. We can also understand this in such a way that most of the people who were infected inside a camp in the first 10 to 10 days had lost their lives compared to those who had the infection later.
The situation was the same in cities. Philadelphia, Boston, New York were the cities where the virus first spread. In the first two weeks, the situation in all these places was very bad. Thousands of people lost their lives. But later the death rate started coming down. It is the general rule that where the epidemic spreads later, there is less death because the virus reaches its extreme point where its mutation rate is reduced.
By the end of November 1918, the virus had engulfed the entire world. At that time the world's population was 1.8 billion. Several studies have shown that 5% of the world's population had died from the 1918 spring to 1919 summer season.
Conclusion:
Rockefeller Institute, John Hopkins University and many other institutions in the world tried to find a cure for In Spanish Flu but all of them failed. This happened because he had made a mistake in understanding the most important thing and that was about the organism that caused the disease. Most doctors agreed that the Spanish flub. Influenza or Bacillus is caused by influenza. But they were relevant.
So what lessons can we learn from this epidemic? The first is that in such situations the government plays a very important role. National and local leaders should take steps to make people aware and to get the right information to the people.
People should know about this disease. They should know what causes it and how it can be avoided. The government should implement public health rules that can prevent the virus from spreading.
Social distancing was not followed in the Army Campus in 1918. It was very crowded and cleanliness was not so much. The soldiers were taken from one place to another. Because of all this, the influenza virus was spreading so fast.
Second, people also play a very important role in this. We should follow the guidelines of the health department and the government. Lockdown, social distancing, wearing masks and gloves, washing hands frequently is the biggest defence against this epidemic. If the contact between the people is controlled and hygiene is taken care of, then this virus can be defeated to some extent. When a new host is not found to infect the virus, it will automatically die.
We should not let fear dominate us. We can fight the virus with the help of science and education. That is the truth of our nature that cannot be avoided. They will happen from time to time. But we definitely have the power to protect our country and our loved ones.
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