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Spanish flu rampant locally in 1918
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Published: November 30, 2009
There have been frequent references to the "Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918," or "The 1918 Pandemic" recently in the news when mention has been made of the H1N1 "swine flu" epidemic. Today's column is not meant to alarm anyone, but there are parallels to the 1918 outbreak, when the nation's, indeed the world's, health situation was alarming.
The 1918 flu did not originate in Spain, but somehow it picked up that label, and it became the accepted name, although it was also called "la grippe."
Virologists still debate where that particular form of virus originated; theories range from Haskell County, Kansas, to a British Army base in France to southeastern China.
Epidemiologists also disagree on numbers, but before the epidemic ran its course, some 40 to 100 million people perished. About 20 percent of the world's population eventually was infected, as were about 28 percent of Americans. Of the 28 percent who contracted it here, around 500,000 did not recover. America's population in 1918 was about 105 million, a third of its present number.
The epidemic caused the projected life span of an average American to drop 12 years, from a life expectancy of about 51 in 1917 to an expectancy of about 39 in 1918.
Every flu season thins the population, with about 0.1 percent of those infected dying from it. The influenza of 1918-1919, however, was statistically 25 times more virulent. Curiously, it was not the very young or the older population that was hardest hit — the usual targets of disease — but young adults in their 20s and 30s.
Beginning in October 1918, reports about the flu began to crowd out the news about the war in local newspapers, even though the World War was rapidly drawing to a close and the Armistice would be signed Nov. 11, a little more than a month later.
A typical local case is that of James C. Colvert, son of Mr. and Mrs. John E. Colvert, of Statesville.
James was living in the Linwood community of Davidson County at the time of his death, which The Landmark reported, "resulted from a brief illness of pneumonia, following la grippe." James was 31 years old and was described as a "young man of unusual energy and thrift and had been very successful as a farmer." He had been healthy; at the time of his passing he had recently built a barn, doing most of the work himself.
The 1918-1919 flu has been called "the forgotten epidemic," as it came during the first World War, when many young people were dying. Not only were young men dying in the trenches of France, but they perished in training camps in the United States as well.
Pvt. Samuel Burette Blackwelder of Mooresville died of "pneumonia and grippe" at Camp Sevier, Greenville, S.C., on Oct. 5. Blackwelder had been training to be a member of Battery "F" of the 113th Field Artillery Regiment. He was survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jake Blackwelder, and by five sisters and five brothers.
A Landmark columnist "LaF.," wrote to the paper and compared the flu to the plagues in the Bible and the Black Death of the Middle Ages, in which a third of Europe's population perished.
"There are several cases mentioned in the Bible," LaF. wrote, "a recognized high authority, accessible to most readers, where people were visited by plagues, and I have thought that under the present circumstances it would be well to refer to some of them and let the Bible reader examine for himself the successful remedy for plagues."
Clearly, LaF. was hinting that people should get right with God.
One difficulty in treating those who came down with influenza or pneumonia was the fact that many of our nation's doctors and nurses were either in the military or were with the American Red Cross overseas, and the flu did not spare those in the medical profession there or here.
According to the Oct. 8, 1918, Landmark, Miss Ettie May Perkins, who had trained at the Long's Sanatorium in Statesville, died of pneumonia following influenza at Camp Meade, Md. Nurse Perkins had recently enlisted in the Red Cross and had been at the hospital at Fort Meade a little more than two weeks when she succumbed.
The Landmark of Oct. 15, 1918, reported the passing of another nurse, Miss Laura Rose Stevenson, daughter of Mrs. Florence Stevenson, of Loray. She died at Presbyterian Hospital, Charlotte, where she was a nurse, "death resulting from pneumonia, following influenza." Miss Stevenson had volunteered to assist those stricken with flu at Davidson College.
"After working as a nurse among the patients at Davidson," the Landmark wrote, "she contracted influenza, pneumonia developing." She was 26 and a graduate of Statesville (now Mitchell Community) College and had just recently completed nurses training at Presbyterian Hospital.
That was the way most victims perished. They contracted the flu, which led to pneumonia, although some died from the flu alone.
Another issue of The Landmark told of the Lackey brothers: "Mr. E. A. Lackey and Mr. O. E. Lackey, brothers, died Friday night about the same hour at their homes in Hamlet, death resulting from influenza. Mr. F. A. Lackey, a third brother, is seriously ill at his home in Hamlet with the same disease. They were the sons of the late Mr. Joseph Lackey and were born and reared in Alexander County near Stony Point. They moved to Hamlet about 25 years ago and had become prominent citizens of the town.
"Later, a message was received here ... advising relatives of the death of F. A. Lackey yesterday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock."
The stories in the local papers, even removed by 90 years, tug at one's heartstrings.
In the Oct. 18, 1918, Landmark, a Mooresville correspondent told of the tragedy that befell the Archer family: "Mr. John G. Archer and wife of the Coddle Creek neighborhood both died of influenza Tuesday night. Mrs. Archer died at 10:45 p.m. and Mr. Archer at 6 next morning. They were sick only four or five days, but pneumonia developed.
"They were buried by a few people, who alone composed the funeral crowd, at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Gilwood Presbyterian Church. They leave four small children, who are also sick. Only one is able to be up at all. Mr. Archer was 33 years old and his wife 25. Two hearses were taken down by the undertaker, who says it is a most distressing case, as people are expected to keep away from the disease, and there was no one except one man there when they went for the burial, and the four children, from one to 8 years old, alone with the corpses of their father and mother."
Another family's plight was described in the same issue, their situation eased somewhat by neighbors: "Mr. Jackson Hager, who lives on the Robert Brawley farm above the (Mooresville) junction, has nine cases — himself and wife and seven children, and three of the family have had pneumonia. One seven-year-old boy is the only one out of bed. The people furnish them plenty of rations but do not go in. The doctor and the little boy do what is done for the family inside, so I am informed."
Similar stories can be found in the local newspapers through 1919.
Medical science has made astounding progress in microbiology and virology in the past nine decades. In 1918 the electron microscope had not been invented. DNA and RNA were just letters left over from a game of Scrabble. There were no gathering points of medical information, such as the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, or the World Health Organization (WHO). Penicillin and other antibiotics were as yet undiscovered.
The nations of the world did not yet realize that pandemics, no respecters of borders, threaten the inhabitants of all nations, so that sharing information about possible outbreaks is to everyone's benefit. Some nations have not come to that realization yet.
Our "regular" winter influenza is currently responsible for some 36,000 American deaths annually.
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