How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
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How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
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Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#2Was there ever a better example of why the government needs to be kept away from news outlets?
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#3> In 1918, medicine had barely become modern; some scientists still believed “miasma” accounted for influenza’s spread.
Does anyone know where I can learn more about the "miasma" model of disease? Whenever I'm looking up old plagues / diseases / etc. etc., they bring up the "miasma" model.
But what is the miasma theory (or pseudo-science?) that people used to believe in? And how does it differ from our modern germ theory?
Ex: I know plague doctors wore airtight masks and waxxed leather to suit-up and protect themselves from the "miasma" of the plague. As an early sanitization model, it probably worked (at least, "worked" as much as modern masks work on untrained laypeople). But where did the miasma model fall short compared to germs?
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#4> In 1918, medicine had barely become modern; some scientists still believed “miasma” accounted for influenza’s spread. Does anyone know where I can learn more about the "miasma" model of disease? Whenever I'm looking up old plagues / diseases / etc. etc., they bring up the "miasma" model. But what is the miasma theory (or pseudo-science?) that people used to believe in? And how does it differ from our modern germ th…
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#5> In 1918, medicine had barely become modern; some scientists still believed “miasma” accounted for influenza’s spread. Does anyone know where I can learn more about the "miasma" model of disease? Whenever I'm looking up old plagues / diseases / etc. etc., they bring up the "miasma" model. But what is the miasma theory (or pseudo-science?) that people used to believe in? And how does it differ from our modern germ th…
Basically it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation for disease.
Some of the mitigations would've been effective, but the mechanism was all wrong. It doesn't permit person-to-person transmission, so you could be in a place with "good air" and still be transmitting disease while thinking you can't.
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#6I read this article a few weeks ago when I fell down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out why the Spanish Flu was called the "Spanish Flu". I knew it didn't originate from Spain, but hadn't heard that the traditional consensus is that it likely started in Kansas, owing to the first detected case being in Kansas.
The CDC has a variety of history pages [0] about the Spanish Flu. The main one acknowledges that there isn't a "universal consensus" about the virus's origin, but doesn't assert any of the other alternative explanations.
The theories that the Spanish Flu might have actually come from China seem to be more recent. Such as this one in 2014 [1] that found reports from 1917 of Chinese suffering Spanish Flu like symptoms. But his explanation for how the first known case in the West was in Kansas – that thousands of Chinese workers were sent to labor around the world – seems really speculative.
Given that there isn't compelling evidence to think the Spanish Flu started elsewhere outside of Kansas, it is funny how not only did it get the name of "Spanish Flu", but also that Kansas managed to not have a long-lasting reputation for terrible disease, even though the Spanish Flu killed more people than (IIRC) all the other 20th century pandemics combined.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoratio...
[1] https://www.history.com/news/china-epicenter-of-1918-flu-pan...
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#7“ Philadelphia had scheduled a big Liberty Loan parade for September 28. Doctors urged Krusen to cancel it, fearful that hundreds of thousands jamming the route, crushing against each other for a better view, would spread disease. They convinced reporters to write stories about the danger. But editors refused to run them, and refused to print letters from doctors. The largest parade in Philadelphia’s history proceeded on schedule.”
I see that Switzerland has imposed a ban on gathering of 1000 or more in response to COVID19 - maybe other countries should consider doing the same?
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#8> In 1918, medicine had barely become modern; some scientists still believed “miasma” accounted for influenza’s spread. Does anyone know where I can learn more about the "miasma" model of disease? Whenever I'm looking up old plagues / diseases / etc. etc., they bring up the "miasma" model. But what is the miasma theory (or pseudo-science?) that people used to believe in? And how does it differ from our modern germ th…
I believe the "miasma" model was the dominant theory at the time of John Snow's famous cholera investigation. In fact, IIRC the dot map method that Snow is famous for (e.g. via Edward Tufte) had also been usedby miasma-proponents; I think the takeaway is that Snow strongest argument weren't the maps, but the investigative surveying and research he conducted in addition to those maps.
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#9This article was from November 2017, can the mod put a year tag in the title?
Re: How the 1918 Flu Spread Across America (2017)
#10Was there ever a better example of why the government needs to be kept away from news outlets?
I don't know that it's a correct reply for this comment, but it sparked in my mind the memory of "All Quiet on the Western Front" [1]
The initial premise of which is that the townsfolk talk war up as a glamorous and noble thing, so all the boys enlist at the outbreak of WWI, only to find what absolute hell it is.
Actually makes me want to go back and read the book. Or maybe re-read? I don't remember if we read it before we watched the film.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/355697.All_Quiet_on_the_...