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Speaker 1: Hello.

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Speaker 2: Extraordinaries, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is doing a feed

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Speaker 2: swap with History Daily.

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Speaker 1: History Daily is a podcast that tackles well History Daily.

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Speaker 1: The episodes are typically pretty short, so for the feed swap,

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Speaker 1: we picked the science topic to share with you. We

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Speaker 1: hope you enjoy it.

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Speaker 2: Will be back to our regularly scheduled dKu fun on Tuesday,

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Speaker 2: and we hope you're having an amazing weekend.

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Speaker 1: It's early March nineteen eighteen in Fort Riley, a US

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Speaker 1: Army training facility in Kansas. Inside the mess hall, the

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Speaker 1: company cook, Private Albert Gitchell Ladle's beef stew onto a

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Speaker 1: metal tray. His movements are mechanical, born of countless repetition.

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Speaker 1: As he adds a second dollar of watery brown sludge

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Speaker 1: onto the tray and slides it to a waiting soldier,

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Speaker 1: gets you all wipe sweat from his brown with the

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Speaker 1: back of his hand, But just as he's about to

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Speaker 1: call out next, he feels a slight tickle in his throat.

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Speaker 1: A cough rises, but soon he's hacking. Then another man

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Speaker 1: appears at the counter camps notoriously ill tempered drill Sergeant

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Speaker 1: Gitchill stifles his cough and lowers his gaze, careful to

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Speaker 1: avoid provoking the ire of the grumpy sergeant. Gitchell ladles

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Speaker 1: two scoops of stew onto his tray, but as he

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Speaker 1: passes it back, tray falls from his hand and crashes

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Speaker 1: to the floor. Gitschell stares at his trembling hand, confused.

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Speaker 1: Then his vision blurs and there's a burning sensation in

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Speaker 1: his skull. He looks up at the drill sergeant, whose

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Speaker 1: boots are now splattered with gravy. The sergeant hisses, what

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Speaker 1: the hell's wrong with you? Gitchill tries to mumble an apology,

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Speaker 1: but the sergeant just stares at him, his expression turning

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Speaker 1: from one of rage to one of concern. The surgeon barks,

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Speaker 1: you look awful, Gitchell, Go get some sleep. The next morning,

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Speaker 1: on March eleventh, Gitchill wakes inside his barracks, racked with

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Speaker 1: a terrible cough, slitting headache, and violent chills. Struggling to breathe,

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Speaker 1: he staggers to the infirmary, where a nurse takes his

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Speaker 1: temperature is running a fever of one hundred and three degrees.

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Speaker 1: The nurse ushers Gitchell into a special wing reserved for

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Speaker 1: contagious diseases. As he sits on a cot, he struggles

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Speaker 1: to breathe, his face turning blue. The nurse asks if

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Speaker 1: he's been in close contact with anybody else. Between short

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Speaker 1: rattling breaths, Gitchell tells her he's the mess cook. He's

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Speaker 1: been in contact with everybody. By noon, every bed in

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Speaker 1: the infirmary will be occupied by men plagued with costs, fevers,

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Speaker 1: and body ages. By the end of the month, over

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Speaker 1: one thousand soldiers from Fort Riley will have contracted the

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Speaker 1: mysterious illness. The nurses don't recognize the symptoms. They assume

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Speaker 1: it's a virulent form of pneumonia, perhaps aggravated by the

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Speaker 1: noxious yellow ash cloud that hangs over the camp byproduct

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Speaker 1: of pigmure being burned nearby. But it's not pneumonia. At

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Speaker 1: Albert Gitchell has become the first known victim of a new,

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Speaker 1: highly contagious disease, the result of a mutation of the

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Speaker 1: influenza virus carried by swine. This disease will spread rapidly

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Speaker 1: through America and then the world, bringing suffering and death

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Speaker 1: to millions, Starting with a first reported case discovered on

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Speaker 1: a military base in Kansas, on March eleventh, nineteen eighteen

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Speaker 1: from Neuser in Airship. I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is

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Speaker 1: History day. History is made every day on this podcast.

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Speaker 1: Every day we tell the true stories of the people

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Speaker 1: and events that shaped our world today. Is March eleventh,

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen the first reported case of the Spanish flu.

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Speaker 1: It's May nineteen eighteen, two months after the flu outbreak

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Speaker 1: at Fort Riley, a transport ship carrying American soldiers to

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Speaker 1: Europe cuts through the Atlantic Ocean. Inside the cabin, a

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Speaker 1: soldier from the eighty ninth Infantry Division rolls over in

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Speaker 1: his bunk and faces the wall. The ship is cramped

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Speaker 1: and uncomfortable, and the rough ocean makes the young private seasick.

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Speaker 1: He shivers and shuts his eyes. World War I has

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Speaker 1: been raging on the Western Front for four years, but

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Speaker 1: Great Britain and her allies are about to gain a

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Speaker 1: crucial advantage America's military might. When German submarines began sinking

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Speaker 1: US merchant ships in the Atlantic, President Woodrow Wilson decided

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Speaker 1: to respond. He declared war on Germany, and by the

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Speaker 1: following spring, two hundred thousand U S soldiers were being

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Speaker 1: shipped to the battlefields of Western Europe. Aware of the

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Speaker 1: incoming American troops, Germany launched its Spring Offensive, a last

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Speaker 1: ditch effort to push back the Allied advance before the

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Speaker 1: US divisions arrive and tip the balance of the war.

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Speaker 1: But unbeknownst to both the Germans and the Allies, these

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Speaker 1: transport ships from America are carrying a much deadlier weapon

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Speaker 1: than mere artillery. By the time the ship docks in France,

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Speaker 1: the American private Sea sickness has turned into a nasty

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Speaker 1: head cold. He spends the journey to the front line

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Speaker 1: convulsed in coughing fits and racked with shuddering chills, the

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Speaker 1: same symptoms exhibited by the men at Fort Riley, and

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Speaker 1: when he arrives at the trenches of the front lines,

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Speaker 1: he finds them infested by rats and lice. When it rains,

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Speaker 1: men are forced to wade through knee deep rivers of mud.

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Speaker 1: The dreadful conditions weaken the soldier's immune systems. Before long,

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Speaker 1: many of them start complaining of sore throats and raging fevers.

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Speaker 1: Red Cross medics can't identify the cause of these symptoms,

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Speaker 1: so they call the malady Flanders Grip, named after the

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Speaker 1: area of Belgium, in which they're fighting for the soldiers,

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Speaker 1: the disease is just another grim reality of the war,

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Speaker 1: right alongside the guns and poison gas. But as the

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Speaker 1: Allies approach victory on the Western Front, Flanders Grip will

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Speaker 1: spread across Europe and beyond, becoming more deadly as it mutates,

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Speaker 1: until the virus which causes the disease sets off a

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Speaker 1: global pandemic. It's June nineteen eighteen, three months after the

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Speaker 1: outbreak at Fort Riley, five thousand miles away from the

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Speaker 1: Western Front, A ship carrying wounded Indian soldiers docks in

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Speaker 1: the port of Bombay in nineteen eighteen. India is still

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Speaker 1: part of the British Empire, and these men belong to

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Speaker 1: the colonial Indian Army. Most are infantry privates known as sepoy,

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Speaker 1: who were injured in the trenches of France before being

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Speaker 1: sent home on the ship. But in addition to their injuries,

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Speaker 1: these seapoy are carrying an invisible threat, a deadly virus

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Speaker 1: which they caught in the trenches and which will soon

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Speaker 1: sweep across the country within days of the ship's arrival.

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Speaker 1: The first cases of the mysterious virus are recorded in Bombay.

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Speaker 1: It's a densely populated city and the virus quickly spreads here.

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Speaker 1: It becomes known as Bombay fever, and it decimates the populace.

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Speaker 1: By fall. Nearly eight hundred people die from the disease

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Speaker 1: every day, and similar scenes are unfolding around the world.

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Speaker 1: In the bustling West African port city of Freetown, Sierra Leone,

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Speaker 1: the contagion arrives on the merchant vessels carrying goods to

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Speaker 1: and from the British front lines. Four percent of Freetown's

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Speaker 1: population are dead within three weeks. Meanwhile, halfway across the world,

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Speaker 1: in Australia, returning troops complain of dry, rasping costs and

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Speaker 1: persistent fevers. The virus goes on to effect around forty

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Speaker 1: percent of the Australian population and kills at least twelve

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Speaker 1: thousand people. From Japan to Brazil to Finland, no corner

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Speaker 1: of the globe remains uninfected. In the United Kingdom, the

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Speaker 1: virus arrives via Glasgow's shipyards and quickly spreads. Pamphlets and

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Speaker 1: posters are distributed advising people to avoid shaking hands and

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Speaker 1: refrain from spitting. In London City buses are fumigated, and

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Speaker 1: surgical face masks are distributed among factory and office workers.

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Speaker 1: Local councils advise victims to self isolate and to gargle

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Speaker 1: saltwater and potassium carbonate. If that doesn't work, some suggest

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Speaker 1: raw onions and whiskey. Even smoking cigarettes is encouraged to

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Speaker 1: kill germs in the lungs, but unsurprisingly, these remedies do

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Speaker 1: nothing to stop people from dropping dead in the streets.

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Speaker 1: By the end of the pandemic, two hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand British people will have died. But with World War

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Speaker 1: One still raging, press censorship restricts new stories about the

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Speaker 1: public health emergency. The governments of Britain, France, and the

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Speaker 1: United States know they're on the verge of victory. They

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Speaker 1: don't want to weaken national morale at such a critical juncture,

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Speaker 1: so most of the initial reports about the virus emerged

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Speaker 1: from one of the few European countries that remain neutral

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Speaker 1: during the war, Spain. It's how the disease gets its name,

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Speaker 1: the Spanish Flu. More than one hundred thousand people living

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Speaker 1: in Spain will die from the disease in nineteen eighteen alone,

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Speaker 1: but then a second wave of the pandemic hits in

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Speaker 1: the fall, and the symptoms intensified and the death's holes rise.

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Speaker 1: Experts around the world begin to urge their governments to

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Speaker 1: implement stricter precautions, but many public officials downplay the danger

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Speaker 1: and dismiss public health warnings as needless fear monitoring. In

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Speaker 1: one city in the United States, this careless attitude will

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Speaker 1: have devastating and deadly consequences. It's September twenty eighth, nineteen eighteen,

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Speaker 1: six months after the Spanish flu first appeared. The sun

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Speaker 1: shines brightly over Philadelphia, where a large parade is underway.

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Speaker 1: City officials organize this event to promote the government's Liberty

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Speaker 1: Loans Initiative, a fundraising campaign designed to sell bonds and

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Speaker 1: raise money for the war effort. Prior to the parade,

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Speaker 1: Philadelphi He's public health director, doctor Wilmer Cruzen, expressed concern

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Speaker 1: about a new virus sweeping the country. After the initial

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Speaker 1: outbreak at Fort Riley, Spanish flu died down in the US,

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Speaker 1: but by late September cases are on the rise again

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Speaker 1: as more and more soldiers returned from the Western Front.

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Speaker 1: Ten days ago, a British merchant ship docked in the

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Speaker 1: Navy yard here in Philadelphia. Days later, six hundred sailors

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Speaker 1: fell ill. Doctor Cruzen faced a tough decision advised city

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Speaker 1: officials to cancel the parade or risk spreading the virus.

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Speaker 1: But doctor Crusin knows how important the parade is. It

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Speaker 1: will boost morale and encourage the purchase of war financing bonds.

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Speaker 1: So he didn't put up much of a fight, and

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Speaker 1: this will prove a calamitous mistake. Today, some two hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand Philadelphians throng the sidewalks, waving and cheering as marching

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Speaker 1: bands and colorful floats parade down Broad Street. But in

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Speaker 1: the midst of this jubilation, the contagion races through the

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Speaker 1: crowns and across the city. In less than two weeks,

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Speaker 1: more than four one thousand, five hundred Philadelphians are killed

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Speaker 1: by the virus. The city shuts down completely. Schools and

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Speaker 1: public venues are closed. Volunteers dig mass graves, church bells

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Speaker 1: ring out in mourning. Philadelphia's death toll is the highest

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Speaker 1: in the country, with over seventeen thousand dead by the

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Speaker 1: time the pandemic ends in nineteen nineteen, but no place

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Speaker 1: in America is spared Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Denver.

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Speaker 1: All across the country, public health officials scrambled to curb

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Speaker 1: the spread of the Spanish flu, frequently butting heads with

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Speaker 1: people who want to downplay the severity of the virus.

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Speaker 1: In the midst of this perilous moment, one public health

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Speaker 1: official will emerge as the most strident voice of caution.

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Speaker 1: But his decision to speak out will cost him. It's

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Speaker 1: early October nineteen eighteen. In Seattle, Washington. A slight bespectacled

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Speaker 1: man waits patiently outside the Mayor's office, his hands folded

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Speaker 1: in his lap. Soon, a secretary pokes her head around

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Speaker 1: the door and says, Mayor Hanson is ready for you.

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Speaker 2: Doctor.

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Speaker 1: The man is doctor Thomas Tuttle, the public health commissioner

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Speaker 1: for the state of Washington. Despite his own allish appearance

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Speaker 1: and shy demeanor, Tuttle is a somewhat controversial figure. During

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Speaker 1: the smallpox epidemic of the early nineteen hundreds, he drew

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Speaker 1: criticism for recommending mandatory vaccinations, and he issued a sharp

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Speaker 1: rebuke against those who refused to vaccinate. Whereas doctor Tuttle

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Speaker 1: called them anti vaccinationists by October nineteen eighteen. Spanish flu

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Speaker 1: cases are rising dramatically in Washington, and unlike Wilmer Cruzen

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, doctor Tuttle is taking decisive action. That's why

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Speaker 1: he's here to see Seattle's Mayor, Oley Hanson. In their meeting,

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Speaker 1: Tuttele advises the mayor to close churches in all public

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Speaker 1: spaces and to issue fines for spitting and for not

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Speaker 1: wearing face masks on street cars. Mayor Hanson knows the

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Speaker 1: measures will be unpopular, but he listens to the doctor,

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Speaker 1: is persuaded by the science and puts preventive measures in place. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Tuttle takes this case to the press. In various publications.

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Speaker 1: He reminds the people of Washington State that the virus

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Speaker 1: will only be curbed with the earnest, conscientious, and intelligent

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Speaker 1: help of every citizen of the state. And for a while,

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Speaker 1: Tuttle's efforts pay off. Washington maintains relatively low rate of infection,

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Speaker 1: but doctor Tuttle's measures are not universally popular. Many in

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Speaker 1: the state ignore his advice. Blaise attitudes are fueled by

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Speaker 1: the position taken by the United States Federal Health Service,

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Speaker 1: which consistently reassures the public that there is no cause

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Speaker 1: for alarm. In Chicago, the Director of Public Health echoes

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Speaker 1: these sentiments, stating that worry kills more people than the disease.

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Speaker 1: But this is far from the truth. Doctor Tuttle knows it.

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Speaker 1: In December nineteen eighteen, with cases on the rise, Tuttle

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Speaker 1: travels to Chicago to attend the national Conference of the

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Speaker 1: American Public Health Association. There he rails against the shortsightedness

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Speaker 1: and in transigence of many of his peers in Earth's

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Speaker 1: stricter enforcement of regulations. Tuttle's words of warning further alienated

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Speaker 1: him from the powers that be In Washington State. In

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Speaker 1: early nineteen nineteen, he's fired from his position as health

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Speaker 1: Commissioner on the basis of his supposedly hard line views. Suddenly,

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Speaker 1: without occupation, he will move to Kansas, where he will

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Speaker 1: take up a new role there on the state Board

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Speaker 1: of Health. Meanwhile, all around the world, doctors remain perplexed

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Speaker 1: by the Spanish flu's origins and struggle to produce a

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Speaker 1: successful vaccine. But of its own accord, the virus will

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Speaker 1: become less deadly as it evolves, until eventually, by nineteen

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Speaker 1: twenty one, fatality rates will return to pre pandemic levels,

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Speaker 1: but by this time the virus is killed between fifty

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Speaker 1: and one hundred million people worldwide. Despite his accomplishments, doctor

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Speaker 1: Tuttle will never understand the epidemiology of the Spanish flu.

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Speaker 1: In one report, he writes, it is very probable we

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Speaker 1: will meet our next epidemic with as lu knowledge of

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Speaker 1: the true nature of the disease as we had in

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Speaker 1: the fall of nineteen eighteen. Still, doctor Tuttle's hard work

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Speaker 1: will not be in vain. His approach to public health

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Speaker 1: guidelines will inform and inspire public policy over one hundred

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Speaker 1: years later, when the world finds itself in the grips

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Speaker 1: of another deadly pandemic. It's January twenty ninth, twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: one hundred, two years since the outbreak of the Spanish flu.

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Speaker 1: A slight bespectacle doctor stands behind a lectern at a

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Speaker 1: medical conference in Arlington, Virginia. Projected on a screen behind

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Speaker 1: him is the title of his lecture, Coronavirus Infection More

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Speaker 1: than just a common cold. The doctor is discussing the

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Speaker 1: recent emergence in China of a novel strain of the

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Speaker 1: coronavirus stars CoV two and the respiratory disease the virus

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Speaker 1: causes COVID nineteen. The disease has not yet spread from China,

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Speaker 1: but when it does, the world must be ready. Doctor's

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Speaker 1: voice is solemn but measured. He has spent his career

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Speaker 1: studying the preventative measures required to control global pandemics. He

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Speaker 1: knows how difficult it can be to clearly communicate the

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Speaker 1: urgency of caution to a disbelieving public. In two thousand

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Speaker 1: and nine, he and a group of other medical researchers

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Speaker 1: published a study entitled and Historical Antecedent of Community Pandemic

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Speaker 1: Flu Mitigation. The report discussed the H one N one

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Speaker 1: strain of the influenza virus that killed five percent of

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Speaker 1: the world's population between nineteen eighteen and nineteen twenty one,

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Speaker 1: that are known as the Spanish flu. The report cited

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Speaker 1: critical health guidelines, including social distancing, the closure of schools

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Speaker 1: and public spaces, and the use of face masks, all

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Speaker 1: measures implemented by the Commissioner of Public Health in Washington

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Speaker 1: at the time. Doctor Thomas Tuttle, now as doctor Anthony Fauci,

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Speaker 1: delivers his first public address on COVID nineteen he thinks

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Speaker 1: about those first measures recommended by Tuttle in nineteen eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and soon doctor Fauci and other public health advisors across

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Speaker 1: the globe will set out to implement very similar measures

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Speaker 1: to curb this newest pandemic. The Spanish Flu was the

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Speaker 1: deadliest natural disaster of the twentieth century. More people died

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Speaker 1: from the virus than during the four years of World

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Speaker 1: War One, and just like today, the true heroes were

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Speaker 1: the nurses, doctors, and frontline workers who risked their lives

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Speaker 1: for the good of the community. And thanks to measures

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Speaker 1: bravely implemented by the likes of doctor Thomas Tunnell, today's

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Speaker 1: public officials are better equipped to handle public health emergencies

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Speaker 1: as they strive to learn from their mistakes made during

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Speaker 1: the Spanish flu outbreak, which started on March eleventh, nineteen eighteen.

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Speaker 1: Next on History Daily, March twelfth, nineteen fifty seven, American

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Speaker 1: author of dot orm Seuss releases a new book aimed

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Speaker 1: at teaching children to read The Cat in the Hats

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Speaker 1: from Neuser and Airship. This is History Daily hosted, edited

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Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Lindsay Graham. Audio editing and

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Speaker 1: sound sign by Molly Bond music by Lindsay Graham. This

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Speaker 1: episode is written in research by Joe Viner. Executive producers

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Speaker 1: are Stephen Walters for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Nousman