WEBVTT - How the Spanish Flu Worked 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.560 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.840 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.720 and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right there, there's Jerry 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.040 over there, and well, well you guys are feeling fine. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.680 I'm a little under the weather, but it's still stuff 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:28.440 you should know, the two thousand nineteen Flu edition, that's right. 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:33.000 And this is dangerously close to published date for us. Yeah, 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:35.360 a little a little close for comfort if you ask me. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:37.760 But you know what, this gives us the opportunity to 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:43.479 do real time stuff. Yeah, like say Seattle, Portland in 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.920 San Francisco. Yeah, we're gonna be in your town next week. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.960 Uh the week, No, you're right, dude, next week when 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.280 this comes out. Yeah, so uh more Theater on January, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.480 uh in Seattle, Revolution Hall in Portland on je X, 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.080 and then our annual Sketch Fest show at the Castro 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:07.480 on January. Tickets are moving kind of slow, guys, And 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:09.880 I think there's been, uh, there's been people writing in 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.679 saying they didn't even know that you were coming. Yeah, so, uh, 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.399 I don't know what the problem is. We're coming, We're coming. Yeah, 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.399 We're still troubleshooting what the deal was, what, because we 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.600 don't ever want to happen again. But um, I just 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.039 feel good knowing that everybody's not mad at us out 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.480 in the Pacific Northwest. Well, I hope not. I would 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:31.399 hope not too, but it was kind of luck in 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:33.640 that way for a second. We think it might be 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:36.080 something to do with our promos, who knows, so we 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.800 wanted to put it in this episode, right, like in 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.319 the body of the episode, like you can't miss it. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.480 So now you know, go to s y s K 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.320 live dot com and there will be links out to 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.280 go get tickets, info all that stuff, and we'll see 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.560 you guys next week. So hurry, hurry, hurry, go get 0:01:56.560 --> 0:01:59.920 your tickets. We'll see you next week next Tuesday, Wednesday 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.960 and Thursday, right, and I will be feeling better by then, 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.240 I'm hoping, ye. So, um, the chuck is kind of 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.359 appropriate that we're talking about the flu, because I don't 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:14.000 have the flu, but I'm a little sick, a little funky. Um, 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.360 I'm not contagious, so don't worry. Well, I appreciate you 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.360 wearing the face mask anyway, which it turns out, according 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:25.200 to this uh this article that ed wrote, um it, Uh, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.560 it's yeah, useless. It doesn't do anything. Yeah, I don't. 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:31.440 I don't know if that's truly useless, is it? Yes? 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.679 I think it is actually quite useless. Um. If it's 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:38.000 a bacterial infection, it might do something because bacteria is 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.959 much larger than viruses. But viruses are very very small, 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:44.600 certainly small enough to be expelled through the mash of 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.000 a gauze when you cougher sneeze into it, sneeze and 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.880 that mask puffs out and little particles spew. Maybe just 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.000 not as far. Yeah, yeah, they might be slowed down 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.639 a little bit. Who knows, maybe like being pushed through 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.000 like a little channel beats them up and increases their 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:07.160 tragic Oh my god, we don't know yet. Uh. Yeah, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:11.080 but this is a flu centric episode, and I can't remember. 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.520 I think I was turned onto this idea. You were 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:19.480 turned on by this idea to this idea? Um, I 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.200 think it was when I was sort of going down 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.840 a World War One rabbit hole. Oh yeah, you were 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.200 talking about that in some episode. I think that was 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.200 what it was. So this is pretty appropriate that we're 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:34.079 talking about this because exactly a hundred years ago today, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:40.200 basically the United States. The world really was standing there, stricken, 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.360 picking up the pieces of basically shattered societies all around 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:49.960 the globe that has just been leveled, absolutely leveled by 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.400 a flu epidemic that came through and killed so many people, 0:03:55.000 --> 0:03:59.240 made so many people sick. It's widely seen as possibly 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:01.960 tied for for if not, it's a very close second 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:06.760 to the worst natural disaster and the worst pandemic to 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:11.720 ever hit human kind in the history of our species. Yeah, 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:13.760 that's how bad it was, and it happened just a 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:17.560 hundred years ago. Yeah. I've seen estimates as high as 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.839 fifty million people dead. Yeah, I've seen I've seen it 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.080 up to a hundred million. I think fifty million. Is 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:25.240 it used to be like the low end and now 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.760 or the high end? And now it's starting to become 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.320 clear it's probably about the low end. I think the 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.480 low end is twenty Oh is that right? Uh? And 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.720 I'm gonna name the high end. Five million people. That's 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.880 supposedly from what I've seen, how many were actually infected? Oh? 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.800 Well possibly, And not only that, like, when that many 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:53.240 people die, it changes the course of world history. Yeah, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.520 it changes it. Basically, it unravels the fabric of society 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:03.920 as we'll see sociding cultures and rules and uh, just 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.200 how humans looked at the earth. It like it it 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:11.400 really turned the forward march of humanity in a certain direction. 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.520 It definitely did. And like this, it's really difficult. Like 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.400 this is one of the most fascinating pieces of of 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.599 world history to me because it was like it's it was. 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.719 It's pretty well documented because it happened only a hundred 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:30.480 years ago, and because it's just so insane what happened, 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.880 Like the Spanish flu was so bad chuck that um 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.520 people were dying of thirst because there was no one 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.920 around them to take care of them. The people who 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.720 were still healthy were so afraid of catching the flu 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.160 they would basically let their neighbors die alone in their 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.520 homes rather than go help them and take care of 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.200 them and give them water. Like that's that's how bad 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:56.640 it was. Like people were dying of thirst from being 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:58.560 so laid up by the flu and not being able 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:01.360 to get water themselves and not having anyone to take 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.760 care of them. And it happened in the United States 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.080 hundred years ago and all over the world. And despite 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.479 all of this horrific thing, Uh, we're about to talk 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.839 about the Grabster started his article writing about hockey as 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.760 he is from Buffalo, and then later on he's like, 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:22.799 it's the third wave that that canceled the NHL playoffs. Yeah, 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.159 I mean it is a footnote though. The Stanley Cup, 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.239 the very famous Stanley Cup, the trophy of the NHL 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:33.480 uh that has all the winning teams etched into it 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.919 says series not completed. That's all it says. And unless 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.160 you know what's going on, you might just scratch your 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.720 head and say, why was the series not completed that year? 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.679 And the reason is because the Spanish flu literally killed 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:51.000 one of the players and got quite a few of 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.640 them sick on both sides of the Seattle Metropolitans. In 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.280 the Montreal Canadiens, yeah, I guess, like right before the 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:00.800 fifth game was going to be played, um or the 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.320 sixth game was going to be played, they like four 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.600 of them were in the hospital. One died, and they're like, yeah, 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.240 we'll just go ahead and canceled the series this year. 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.640 But what's what is crazy is like, that's pretty bad 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:17.080 because think about it, you're a hockey player, you're probably young, 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:20.680 you're probably pretty healthy. That's really weird to die from 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.720 the flu. Uh, and that was a big hallmark of 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:26.080 the Spanish flu as we'll see. But this was also 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.480 like a third wave. This is the third like roundhouse 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.160 that the Spanish fluid delivered to the global population when 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.920 the when the Stanley Cup was canceled or the the 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:41.360 NHL Playoffs was canceled that year in amazing. So let's 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:46.440 talk a little bit about flues normally, shall we. Yeah, 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.440 I mean, I think everyone understands that the flu is 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.000 not bacterial like you were talking about. It is a virus, 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:55.040 and ordinarily like the flu that you have, is that 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:57.480 the flu you have are cold. It's just like a cold. 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.080 It's just funk, you know what I mean? You me 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.920 and I went to Vegas for her birthday, um, to 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.840 go see Dave Chappelle and John Mayer, and I think 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.040 just being on the plane and being kind of run 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:10.200 down and everything, we we both kind of picked up 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.400 a little bit funk. I think it's a tummy year. 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.440 It's a funky kind of year. Emily gets sick every January. Yeah. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.320 I think it's also has to do with the holidays, uh, 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:26.120 just because they're as fun and and unadulterated ly enjoyable 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:30.000 as they are, they're also a taed stressful sometimes. Well yeah, 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:32.000 and her that's her busy time of year for her business, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.839 so oh yeah, that's it's it's almost inevitable that she'll 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.880 get sick every January, just like her body's fighting and 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.959 fighting all through December and then just goes literally the 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.560 day after Christmas. It's like sniff, yeah, he just crashed. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.240 Here it comes. Yeah. So the flu was a virus, 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:51.640 and in most cases, like I was saying, you have 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:53.880 the you know, you have your eggs and your fever 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.400 and your coughing, and you're tired, and uh, sometimes it 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:00.360 may be affect your stomach some sometimes it may not, 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.559 but it's usually in and out in a few days, 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.480 and that's sort of the end of it. Um. If 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.360 you're like you mentioned, if you're elderly, or if you're 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.200 a little little tiny one, uh, the flu can be 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:16.319 pretty dangerous in any case, but ordinarily in healthy adults, 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:19.080 is just a regular sickness that comes and goes. Yeah, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.160 especially like if you look at you know, a graph 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.880 of ages starting at an infant all the way say 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.640 two hundred year olds. If you if you look at 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.440 flu deaths, it goes down in the middle and then 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.760 goes back up. It's high on one end, high on 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.600 the other end, very low to non existent in the middle, 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:41.000 like healthy, like middle aged and younger adults don't die 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.880 from the flu normally, right. Uh So, there are many 0:09:44.880 --> 0:09:49.200 types of flu. Uh, many strains of this virus. And 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.040 in nineteen eighteen, for the Spanish flu, which we'll get 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.920 to the naming of that in a second, it was 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.280 type A subtype H one in one because they have 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.640 subtype designations, and then within those subtypes there are other strains. 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.760 Because the flu is constantly trying to outrun humans and 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:12.760 humans trying to beat it down. Yeah, I guess so. 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:14.800 So it's like I'm just gonna change a little Yeah, 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.240 watch this, and it goes big boom boom boop, and 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:23.960 now it's Bumblebee from Transformers exactly. Uh So, this was 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:28.400 a genuine pandemic called the Spanish flu. And I never 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:30.720 knew this at all, but it had really had nothing 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:35.640 to do with being out of Spain or have anything 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.160 to do with Spain other than the fact that Spain 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.560 was neutral in World War two, I'm sorry, world War One, 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.800 and while other newspapers around the world were really censoring 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.440 things and not so free. Spain was just reporting. The 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.440 only country really reporting about the flu. Yeah right, I 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.080 didn't call the Spanish flu. I didn't realize this either. 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:57.160 In the Spanish were like no, no, wait, wait, you 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.600 guys aren't getting this. It's all just disproportionately on us. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.880 But it started in Kansas, it right. It seems like 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:08.760 the um the that Spain had the worst of it because, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:10.559 like you said, they were the only ones who were 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.360 openly reporting on it. And some of the Axis and 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:15.520 Allied actually that might have been World War two, but 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.360 some like France, Germany, Great Britain, the US, the governments 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.280 were at war and their propaganda machines were in full swing. 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:25.400 They didn't want to do anything to impact morale. They 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.840 also didn't want to give the enemy any indication that 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.520 their troops were sick, that there was a flu virus 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.360 spreading through their their ranks, so they just downplayed it 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.920 at home and everywhere. But since Spain was neutral, they 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:39.839 talked about it. It It seemed like Spain had the worst 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.720 of it. That's totally not the case. It's just it 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.840 was all just reporting. Spain just reported on it openly. 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:49.720 That's fascinating. To me. Yeah, totally fascinating, and uh, it 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.960 was a legit pandemic because it touched UM kind of 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.679 every corner of the globe, except for notably two places 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.080 that were able to successfully quarantine themselves. What was that 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:06.199 American Samoa, Yeah, in New Caledonia. Are those even places? 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:10.360 They still are places thanks to those quarantines. Yeah, it 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:12.680 could have wiped them out. Oh yeah, I think some 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.520 places did get wiped out. I believe Western Samoa UM 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.280 was basically wiped out by the Spanish flu. There were 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:22.800 plenty of UM like settlements, especially Native American settlements in 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.959 more remote places like Alaska, that were almost entirely if 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.520 not entirely wiped out UM. And then you know if 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:33.679 depending on where you went around the world, like Japan 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.080 got hit, but they they had like a one percent 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.079 infection rate or something like that, where other places had 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:44.000 like like I think globally it was about thirty. So 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.720 it was strange how it hit people differently. But it 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.079 was definitely, like you said, it was a real pandemic 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.520 in that it was everywhere around the world that this 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.680 strain of the flu was leveling people. Yeah, and there's 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.680 a couple of other kind of startling stats. That five 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.640 million in fact that you were talking about not dead 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.600 but infected. That was about a thirty three percent of 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:09.400 the world's population, which is startling. And in the United 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.520 States life expects you know how it talked about it 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.760 just changing everything. Oh yeah, it actually altered life expectancy 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:20.439 in the US by twelve years. Yeah, from nineteen eighteen 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:25.320 and nineteen nineteen, they expected average expected or the life 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.559 expectancy like you said, it went from it went to 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.319 thirty six point six for men and forty two point 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:35.240 two for women man, which is pretty like the the 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.720 what it had been before was still pretty low, but 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:42.760 to drop twelve years overnight, basically because I don't think 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.480 we've gotten this across yet, Chuck. What we're talking about 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.959 happened in less than a year. In less than a year, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.840 a third of the world's population came down with this 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.600 very virulent flu and as much as five percent of 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:58.200 the world's population died from that flu in less than 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.280 a year. Yeah, and the we'll talk about the different waves, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:06.040 but the second deadliest wave really was about four months 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:08.880 and and the amount of people that died within a 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.360 four month period all over the world was just like 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.440 it's hard to really grasp it really is. And the 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.480 other thing about it too, is largely because of that 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:22.720 propaganda machine, that was the propaganda machines that were in 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:26.760 full operation in all those different countries, along with um 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:29.960 kind of exuberance for the war being over or just 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.120 basically being focused on the war. Because the Spanish flu 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.760 happened at the same time World War One was going 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:39.960 on and ending. Um, it wasn't. It's not remembered like 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:41.840 you think it would be. Like you would think this 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:43.880 would be like everyone would know about this and be 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.520 talking about it, and it's not. It just kind of 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.400 got swept under the rug historically speaking in a lot 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:52.480 of ways. You want to take a break. Yeah, I 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:57.520 think that was a uh wonderful, long winded setup. That's 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:29.920 what we do. That's how we do things, alright, Chuck. 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.760 So let's start at what maybe the beginning. There's this 0:15:33.800 --> 0:15:38.240 guy named John M. Barry, and he is a not 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.480 Embury by the way, his meddle initials M, and his 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:46.280 last name is Barry. Uh. He is an historian, and 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.080 he wrote a book called The Great Influenza, and he 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.840 wrote an article based on his research called how the 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:58.880 Horrific en flew spread across America. It's on Smithsonian magazine. UM, 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.800 and this guy's done some leg work and he has 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:06.360 created a theory that's starting in about January of nineteen eighteen, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:09.640 the beginning of nineteen eighteen, uh, there was a flu 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:14.040 outbreak in Haskell County, Kansas, which is a very rural 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:18.680 agricultural area, and that some of those farm boys who 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.760 came down with the same flu made their way to 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.200 Camp Funston, which is part of Fort Riley, Kansas now 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.280 Santa Fe in particular, was is the town if you 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.880 want to even pinpointed further in Kansas, not New Mexico, 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:37.800 Santa Fe, Haskell County, Kansas, three miles west of Camp Funston, YEP. 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:40.840 So some of these farm boys who were sick with 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.680 this flu ended up being drafted and sent to Camp Funston. 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.360 And it was Camp Funston where they think the first 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.960 cases of the Spanish flu started to break out. That 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.520 first wave happened in about the spring and then traveling 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.600 over to Europe into the summer of nineteen unique teen. 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.400 And it wasn't that first wave wasn't particularly bad, It 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:08.880 wasn't any particularly noteworthy, and it was mostly confined to um, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.560 two dough boys basically people who worked on on military 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:17.600 basis as well. Um, and then maybe towns near military basis. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:19.320 But that was about it. And then it went away 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:22.560 and it wasn't like had it just been that, it 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:27.400 probably would not have been remarkable historically at all. Yeah, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.160 and you know this, we may not even know about 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.840 any of this as far as its origin. And there 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:34.639 have been a lot of other theories over the years 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.320 about its origin, but this one seems to hold the 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.840 most water now. But we may not have ever known 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:42.760 anything about any of the origin if it had not 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:49.159 been for Dr Loring Minor, who was a great for 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.560 a small of a county in town as this was. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.720 He was a really great town doctor. Uh. And he 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.080 was like at the time, flew just would come and go, 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.840 like I said. So was never reported on in journals. 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.359 It was never uh, it was never really a big deal. 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.320 It was never published. But Dr Loring Minor was so 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:12.800 alarmed at the rate of spread in his small town 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.080 and the how much of a wallop that it packed. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.000 He actually published his concerns in a in a journal 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.399 called the Public Health Reports journal has a different name today, 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:27.400 but he was the only person in the world expressing concern. 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.320 And I believe this is still the very first case 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.560 of influenza being reported because of how like unusual and 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:37.920 and deadly that they thought it could be. Yeah. I 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.480 saw that too, that the very fact that this guy 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.800 reported it at all is remarkable. Yeah. So they kind 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.520 of trace it back and say, we we now think 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:51.080 we know where ground zero was, Haskell County, Kansas. So 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.800 from Haskell County, Kansas, it went to Camp fund Stone 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:57.119 and then it went over to Europe. This is the 0:18:57.160 --> 0:18:59.760 first way that we're talking about. They hadn't changed their 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:01.840 name because that used to be we put the fun 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.520 in fun Stone, right, and then after that they were like, yeah, 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:10.560 we gotta go to Fort Riley. So um, over in Europe, 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:15.080 something happened to this, to this flu I mutated in 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.280 some way, it did something. It mixed with some other 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.399 flu maybe from Asia, maybe something that was present in Europe, 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:25.640 who knows, but there you know, there was a flu 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:30.240 outbreaks over there in um in Europe, particularly at one 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:35.200 called a Topoa. I think I added a little extra 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.119 mustard on that, but um, it's generally how you say it. 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.399 It was a huge British camp that held up to 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:44.560 a hundred thousand troops and it was packed elbow to 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.119 elbow in the summer of nineteen eighteen, and so that 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.439 definitely did not help UM keep the flu under wraps. 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:56.080 It's spread pretty quickly. And then some of those dough boys, 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.239 those American UM soldiers fighting in World War One who 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.840 were in Europe made their way back to the United States, 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.600 and so this this strain of flu that had made 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.520 its first wave out of Kansas over to Europe came back. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:13.800 And when it came back, it was different in all 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.480 the worst ways. Yeah, I mean, we were talking about 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.560 how it got overshadowed by World War One, but it 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.359 may not have even happened had it not been for 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.159 World War One, because the conditions of of army boot 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.880 camp and in shuttling soldiers overseas, like you were saying, 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.560 it's tight quarters, it's like just dude stacked on each other, 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.240 all up in each other's faces, and it was just 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.160 sort of a recipe for disaster. Yeah, while this war 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.920 was you know, not unfolding, it had unfolded by that point, 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.159 but it was really just a confluence of factors. It 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:51.479 was really kind of staggering. Well, plus also you can 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.000 make the case that those Kansas farm boys never would 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.040 have made their way to Camp fund Ston, and they 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:59.440 certainly never would have made their way to Europe. So 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:03.240 it probably wouldn't have happened, especially if the thing mutated 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.280 in Europe and got worse. The Spanish flu, Yeah, probably 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.399 never would have happened had it not been for the 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.800 First World War. Yeah. The other problem was and there 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:13.760 were a lot of factors to why it spread so quickly, 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:17.040 but one was because that it didn't really look like 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.200 the flu in a lot of cases. Uh doctors really 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:24.160 quite you know. They they were slow to diagnose as 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:27.240 a flu and then as an epidemic because a lot 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:31.359 of people were dying from pneumonia and uh sometimes for 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.199 a while they thought it was bacterial in nature. So 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:36.440 they were coming up with vaccines and all this stuff, 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:39.400 and none of that was working, and so it kind 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:43.520 of took a long time. Even though doctor uh Minor 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:45.960 in Kansas was kind of ringing the bell, no one 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:47.840 was still paying attention. So it took a long time 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.080 for them to kind of sound the alarm and say, 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.640 all right, we got a real problem here, right, And 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:56.760 at the time they knew that viruses existed but they 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.119 still weren't sure what they were. They called virus is 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.320 filterable agents because they had figured out and I think 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.640 back in that if you've filtered an infection through something 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.760 called a Chamberlain candle, which can filter out any in 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:15.280 all bacteria, some infections still persist, which shouldn't be the 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.399 case because you've just filtered out all the bacteria. So 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:22.520 that means that there's something smaller than bacteria that they 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.160 we don't really know about that can cause infection. There's 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.200 some other pathogen out there, and this is the way 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:32.000 that they that they approached viruses um. I think by 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:34.200 the time the Spanish fleet was still around, we knew 0:22:34.200 --> 0:22:35.639 that there was something out there, but no one had 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:37.800 actually ever seen a virus, and wouldn't see a virus 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:40.480 until I think the nineteen thirties because they're too small 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:45.080 for optical microscopes. So the the idea that this was 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.639 caused by a bacterial agent, it makes a lot of sense. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.439 That's what humanity had experience in dealing with entreating. But 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:54.520 then on top of it, like you said, so many 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.560 people were dying or getting pneumonia that it just appeared 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.119 like it was a horrible material pandemic rather than a 0:23:02.240 --> 0:23:06.560 viral one or typhoid or cholera, like it was misdiagnosed 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:09.879 all over the place because some of these symptoms were 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:14.520 just unusual, Like bleeding out of the ears. It's so bad. 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:18.160 When you're bleeding out of your ears, things are going 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:21.640 badly for you. Like, it doesn't get much worse than 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:24.600 bleeding out of your ear. You have serious issues if 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:27.679 you're bleeding, unless, of course you've like you know, nicked 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.320 the inside of your ear with your fingernail. If you're 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:32.960 bleeding out of your ear from inside of your head, 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.520