Influenza in 1918

[Old Tom]

Hello,

I have been reading up the various offensives during the '100 Days'. Some authors refer to the effects of influenza on the German army. A TV programme the other day included an opinion that the influenza pandemic started in allied camps in France. It seems to be generally accepted that the pandemic killed more people world wide than the war. Have we any experts on this topic, or does anyone know of any non medical specialist publication on the effects of influenza on the forces on the Western Front?

Old Tom

[andigger]

John Barry's book "The Great Influenza" came out this year and is proported to have great research into the outbreak and the way the virus was confrontated an contained. I have not read it myself, but I believe there are some reviews if you search the book section of the Forum. Andy

[Gary Samson]

There's an accessible one-page article by Dr David Payne in the April 2003 edition of the WFA's Stand To. In it he states 'influenza [...] was already present in 1916 in the huge British Army transit and training camps in France - notably at Etaples.' He goes on to say 'It is also perhaps significant that the Etaples camps maintained pig and other livestock farms to feed the troops. Therefore, it is quite feasible that the 1918 influenza pandemic [began] in the British Army pig farms on the Western Front. Evidently, the huge scale of troop movements before and after the Armistice would have provided an excellent means of propagating the virus ...'

Gary

Edited 13 December , 2005 by Gary Samson

[jdajd]

Not to add fuel to the America won the war idea , but didn't we bring the flu over with us? I thought that the flu started at Fort Riley in Kansas, which raised its own pigs and poultry for local consumption. The flu passed either from the pigs or the birds to a cook who passed it on to the rest of the world.

Jon

[andigger]

Not to add fuel to the America won the war idea , but didn't we bring the flu over with us?

Odd way to win a war, start by killing 60k+ of your own men first. Andy

[T8HANTS]

Hi

Is it possible that the flu started at low level in France 1916, was passed across the Atlantic 1917 and entered the rapidly expanding US forces, (who may have had a lower resistance to it) who then brought it back over with them in as their troops arrived. Was there any movement of potentially infected individuals from France to the US as part of the military build up. In theory we would only need one infected officer on a tour. That way both sets of research would be correct.

Gareth

[jdajd]

Odd way to win a war, start by killing 60k+ of your own men first. Andy

You gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.

[Guest]

Hi

Is it possible that the flu started at low level in France 1916, was passed across the Atlantic 1917 and entered the rapidly expanding US forces, (who may have had a lower resistance to it) who then brought it back over with them in as their troops arrived. Was there any movement of potentially infected individuals from France to the US as part of the military build up. In theory we would only need one infected officer on a tour. That way both sets of research would be correct.

Gareth

If it did start in France, then there was a further outbreak in Aldershot according to sources. Neigther of these was as lethal as the full epidemic version and the virus may still have been mutating then.

[Old Tom]

Hello,

Some useful leads and ideas, many thanks.

Old Tom

[gporta]

There's an accessible one-page article by Dr David Payne in the April 2003 edition of the WFA's Stand To. In it he states 'influenza [...] was already present in 1916 in the huge British Army transit and training camps in France - notably at Etaples.' He goes on to say 'It is also perhaps significant that the Etaples camps maintained pig and other livestock farms to feed the troops. Therefore, it is quite feasible that the 1918 influenza pandemic [began] in the British Army pig farms on the Western Front. Evidently, the huge scale of troop movements before and after the Armistice would have provided an excellent means of propagating the virus ...'

Gary

I am a bit surprised at learning this... mainly because that pandemic was called "Spanish influenza", so I always thought that it was our fault.

But then the pig/livestock origin sounds feasible: similar to what is happenning nowadays with poultry.

Gloria

[Guest]

There is something about the Etaples theory in the Dec 05 edition of BBC History or History Today - can't remember which.

[Gary Samson]

In an interesting twist at the end of his article, David Payne notes that "many Great War soldiers believed that the pandemic was due to the typhoid vaccination that was compulsory for all Allied troops on the Western Front (shades of 'Gulf War Syndrome'). Large numbers of the civilian populations of the former warring nations were also vaccinated for typhoid after the Armistice to provide protection from 'disease-ridden soldiers returning from the battlefield'". He does add that there is no scientific evidence for this connection, however.

Gary

Edited 14 December , 2005 by Gary Samson

[FAAAEd]

I had had a newly published booki on this very topic a few years back (about 1999) and lent it to my dad and haven't seen or thought about it since.

From memory their was a series of outbreaks of influenza type going back to early 1917 each one thought to be a mutant of the earlier strain.

One thing I do remember is the author describing in some detail the outbreaks in the US in some detail and that thousands of Doughboys suffered and perished in transit on troop ships across the Atlantic during the US Army in Europe build up especially during 1918.

Also the author, female as I recall, made a trip to frozen wastes somewhere with a scientific expedition attempting to track down a sample of the virus from a site known to hold the corpses of buried servicemen (US I think).

If anybody is interested I'll tel' and ask for the title and authors name.

[Gary Samson]

Also the author, female as I recall, made a trip to frozen wastes somewhere with a scientific expedition attempting to track down a sample of the virus from a site known to hold the corpses of buried servicemen (US I think).

From David Payne again (it really is a very good article), "In 1951 and 1998, respectively, it was hoped that the bodies of Spanish 'Flu victims buried in Alaska (Brevig Mission) and Norway (Spitzbergen) would yield tissue bearing useful samples of the virus. Unfortunately, it was discovered that in both localities the bodies were buried in shallow graves, so were not preserved sufficiently by the permafrost to give perfect examples of the complete viral DNA."

Gary

[FAAAEd]

From David Payne again (it really is a very good article), "In 1951 and 1998, respectively, it was hoped that the bodies of Spanish 'Flu victims buried in Alaska (Brevig Mission) and Norway (Spitzbergen) would yield tissue bearing useful samples of the virus. Unfortunately, it was discovered that in both localities the bodies were buried in shallow graves, so were not preserved sufficiently by the permafrost to give perfect examples of the complete viral DNA."

Gary

For those interested the book I had in mind is:

Catching Cold: 1918's Forgotten Tragedy and the Scientific Hunt for the Virus that Caused it' by Pete Davis and publsihed under the Michael Joseph (I think, but Dad was not at all clear) Imprint by Penguin Books, 1999.

Your mention of the Alaska (Brevig Mission) rings bells and I think this is also described in some detail in this very informative, and suddenly relevant book.

[truthergw]

From David Payne again (it really is a very good article), "In 1951 and 1998, respectively, it was hoped that the bodies of Spanish 'Flu victims buried in Alaska (Brevig Mission) and Norway (Spitzbergen) would yield tissue bearing useful samples of the virus. Unfortunately, it was discovered that in both localities the bodies were buried in shallow graves, so were not preserved sufficiently by the permafrost to give perfect examples of the complete viral DNA."

Gary

There was a TV programme based on this or very similar research.I can't rememember much except that it would be on one of thhe four terrestrial channels .

[PhilW]

I remember reading quite a lot in the "National Geographic Magazine" about the 1918 flu. If you do a search for "1918 influenza" on their site there are quite a few readable articles on the topic. Not sure how useful they would be to you, but one example is here

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...spanishflu.html

another here

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0510/feature1/

[Old Tom]

Hello.

Thanks Phil, an interesting steer. The fascinating point made in that article is that the outbreak was manily reported in Spanish newspapers, hence 'Spanish Flu' but that censorship by nations engaged in the Great War suppressed reports of the effect on military personnel in France. I can understand that but wonder why authors in more recent years have not made more of the effects, if indeed the effects were serious. Towards the end of the war the effects of the blockade etc on Germany lead to food shortages and, I suppose, a general lowering of the health of the nation, including soldiers. In that case the impact of flu would have been greater on the German army than on the allies, or would it?. During the 100 days the manpower of many German formations and units was much reduced and it would be interesting to know to what extent that reduction was due to flu.

Merry Christmas to all

Old Tom

[Guest mythago]

Although largely devoted to the current avian flu pandemic, this site has an up-to-date section on the 1918 human pandemic that is very interesting. There are also discussions about why the 1918 flu, unlike normal flu, killed young, healthy adults as opposed to the elderly and children.

Cas

[duckman]

I've read John Barry's book and thought it was excellent. A little frustrating perhaps, because his heroes - the doctors - didn't actually crack it (cause, treatment, avoidance etc) until years later.

He maintains, with pretty sound reasoning, that the outbreaks in Etaples and Aldershot were not 'flu - or at least not the same strain. The symptoms were quite different. I have forgotten the correct medical terminology, but in essence these were spontaneous local outbreaks of fever which may or may not have been 'flu related. Harking back a hundred years earlier, there was an outbreak of fever in the British expeditionary force that landed on Walcheren island in 1809, which is not so far away. Rather inventively, they called it Walcheren Fever. Local waterborne diseases would have had much opportunity to resurface at dangerous levels with the amount of stagnant water lying in shell holes in the area by 1916.

Barry traces the 1918 outbreak to Haskell County Kansas in the winter of 1917-18. A number of poultry farmers were diagnosed with unusual symptoms, several dying before a doctor could even get to them, let alone treat them. The outbreak at Camp Funston, Kansas at the end of Winter 1918 coincides with the arrival of new recruits taken from (amongst others) Haskell County. It can then be traced to other camps in the US and France through troop movements.

Susceptibility seems to have varied through populations. I haven't gone through the figures in detail, but it seems that in the first wave (to June 1918) the French and British suffered less, while the US and Germany rather more.

The bodies response to viral invasion can be extreme, and fatalities from this 'flu did not come from secondary infections (pneumonia) as with most 'flu. In attacking infected cells in the lining of the lungs etc, the immune response damages tissues (this is kill or be killed stuff). In the case of the 1918 'flu, the primary infection generated a massive response - a "cytokine storm" - which did so much damage that patients either asphixiated or drowned in their own fluids (sorry if thats a little yuk).

That accounts for the US cases being severe. Generally fitter than European equivalents, I assume that their immune systems were more aggressive in fighting the infection, which as we have seen was what caused their deaths.

I am uncertain about the cause for high German rates (if that is the case). Perhaps in their case, it was not so much that immune response was too severe, but their general poor nourishment over the preceding three years left them more vulnerable to secondary infections.

Barry's book also covers the "life cycle" of an outbreak, which makes it abundently clear why we should all be concerned about the current bird 'flu biz.