Do scientists know why in 1918 people survived the flu?. In 1918 my Ukrainian grandmother lived in a small town in Manitoba with her two parents and 9 siblings, though Manitoba was severely hit and thousands died her family remain unscathed. She said it was so unusual that word spread and people would come from miles around to ask my great grandmother for garlic. I don’t think that the family had any super immunity as one of her sisters in the late 1920s died from TB.
Most of us will survive a flu pandemic one way or another— 1. Genetic variations => different susceptibility and resistance; 2. Acquired immunity <= mild exposure, winning the battle against flu; 3. Environmental variations: garlic mixed with a Sichuan chili, perhaps. Or OCD style handwashing (which can be argued as genetic variations); 4. Mutation of the flu virus itself: those mutants with a lower death rate and higher infection ability will win over. What they do is to immunize people without killing them.
It’s evolution at work.
Thank you for your response. Your comment about handwashing reminds me of my grandmother’s fastidious about cleaniness. I don’t think cleaniness can be undereastimated. I am also reminded of her habit of always wearing gloves when out, though that was also due to her sense of what it meant to be civilized.
Although I am concerned about birdflu should it become transmissible between humans, and worry as to what precautions to take, I find it helpful to remind myself that people survived the 1918 pandemic without the assistance of Tamiflu or extraordinary measures.
Don’t take the comment about “OCD-style handwashing” literally. People who do that, wash their hands tens of times a day or more, and very often their hands become chapped and their skin develops abrasions or cracks, which become points at which virus (as well as bacteria) can enter.
Wash your hands before preparing food or eating, before and after using the toilet (before because you don’t want germs from dirty hands getting on your skin in sensitive areas of your body), before and after blowing your nose (same rationale), after putting clothes in the washer, after handling refuse for collection, and as soon as you get home from being out in public places. Don’t shake hands; develop another custom such as bowing slightly or looking someone in the eye and nodding slightly, or something like that; or if do shake hands, wash your hands before returning to normal routines. That’s reasonable but it is nowhere near OCD-style handwashing.
After you wash your hands, apply a moisturizing hand lotion to prevent your skin becoming too dry.
The OCD reference flew over my head till you pointed it out. It puts that post in a somewhat different light. My grandmother was not obsessive complusive but definitely viligent to a high degree and that viligence may have played a role in protecting her family.
Manitoba was hit hard by the 1918 flu. My ancestors were dirt poor after immigrating to Canada. One would think that being highly stressed and having a poor diet would have made at least one them susceptible to the virsus. That none of them caught the bug makes one wonder why.
To equate concern for cleaniness with OCD behaviour is downright dangerous. It is accepted fact that southern China has always been the breeding ground for flu viruses because of its abysmal lack of santitation and its cultural acceptance of patently unsanitary conditions and habits.
In fact, you can find OCD tendency in good personal hygiene, career success and life-long faithful relationships. For the record, I don’t recommend OCD-style handwashing, neither garlic + Sichuan chili.
I know my mother and mother in law were demon house keepers, fastidious as could be. My mother was born in 1898 and mother in law probably was 10 during the flu epidemic. I am not particulary fastidious, and always wondered why these two were that way. My sister is even more fastidious than my mother was, and she is health conscious, always was. At 75 she looks 45. All of the women in my family have an ageless quality. I think so much is genetic in looks, in attitudes in habits. Look at studies of twins. Raised in separate households but all so similar, and unlike their separate families.
I have OCD but am medicated and it is kept reasonable well under control. These days i am just fastidious about cleanliness which may be a blessing in the times to come!
The portion of cleanliness that will help the most if TSHTF is keeping your hands super-clean, especially before eating, or touching your nose, eyes or mouth. Household dirt is not a problem - if it were my family would be sick all the time lol! Remember in the begining of The Aviator? Howard Huges is a young boy and his mother is washing him and spelling out the word quarentine? There was supposedly cholera going around. Creepy.
OCD is an atavistic remnant of our evolutionary past, and a little bit of it goes a long way, but too much is a poison, (like most things in life). When I was a District Manager for a medical supply company I always liked to hire reps with a touch of OCD (and personable).
Thats me! Crazy but friendly ;)
Years ago before computers and copy machines, those of us who did office work used carbon paper to make multiple copies. The ink from the carbon paper would always wind up on your hands, and therefore if you handled the typed pages you would get fingerprints or smudges on the finished product. In order to avoid that problem, you would wash your hands frequently - a habit I still have today, even though I haven’t used a piece of carbon paper in years. And I very rarely get the flu.
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