The flu pandemic of 1918, a reported in 1918

In October of 1918, the Canadian Public Health Association’s Public Health Journal reproduced a newspaper broadside from Chicago’s Commissioner of Health and the U.S. Surgeon General aimed at informing “every man, woman, and child” about the disease. There’s nothing here that sounds strange today: if you get sick, stay in bed and take plenty of liquids; seek medical attention if conditions worsen. Most people, after all, recovered after 3-4 days. Death usually came from complications, notably pneumonia. As a “catching disease,” severe attacks could be spread to others from the germs of someone who only manifested mild symptoms. (Cover your nose and don’t spit!) The term of art here is “germ.” “Virus” in its modern sense dates to Dmitri Ivanovsky’s 1892 discoveries, but the word does not seem to have been in general circulation.