12/01/2012

December 1: The Spanish Flu Pandemic

Arising suddenly in January 1918, the Spanish Flu pandemic ground to a halt and disappeared by this month in 1920. While not caused by the First World War per se, the disease was unusually vicious in turning a healthy immune system against itself, such that a high spike of deaths occurred in the very fittest individuals in their 20s. The cramped wartime conditions of young men in battle proved to be an excellent medium for the virus.

With as many as 50 million dead in nearly all parts of the world - 3% of the human population at the time - the enormity of the influenza pandemic was masked by the Great War, despite being twice as deadly.