In what form did the pandemic’s of last century announce themselves in the media? Were there report’s for year’s about a disease in bird’s? Then report’s of death’s in humans handling birds? (Kind of resembling the pattern now.) I’m mainly referring to the Asian and Hong Kong flus, because I know that 1918 was a rather bizarre case. I’m interested in the days they were pronounced as of epidemic proportion, and the storys that shook the world during those particular times. Where do I find them?
Try on-line sources like the NYTimes or other major papers. They offer on-line access to past editions. even smaller papers have interesting ones, including small towns r/e 1918. Let us know if you find anything itneresting!
The first real Flu announcement that I have found is the 1917 Lancet article.
You may want to look at the spanish papers. Remember the “Spanish Flu” was not well covered in WWI countries but was in Spain.
I cannot find the info now, but as I understand it (big gap here), is that the event was first mentioned in medical conferences in China as a deadly flu in Tibet early in 1917/1916. It was not thought a threat at the time and then followed “small” out breaks. It seems to be mixed with a “normal but serious” seasonal flu and then in 1918 hit with full force.
see for example: “To make it even more unnerving, it now seems that the 1916 Flu was actually the ‘1916 Flu’ - that is, that it had first appered in 1916, claimed victims, and then ‘disappeared’ while its unsuspecting and surviving hosts took it with them back to their own countries around the globe (this makes the parallel with the recent initial outbreak of SARS even more unnerving!).
For a previously little-known article in The Lancet (the British medical journal), July14, 1917 edition, describes a virulent outbreak with exactly the same symptoms, speed and mortality rate in the huge British troop ‘tent city’ at Etables, France - where Empire and Commonwealth troops from many of the countries later afflicted were living cheek-by-jowl in vast numbers. And live duck and pigs were kept there in equally large numbers, as foodstocks, too (and, unwittingly, to complete the transmission cycle). “
I have been to the news archives in google(reading some now) and they give, for free, TIME articles. Nothing good yet. I mean, I’m trying to find out what these thing’s first looked like as they approached. What warning’s; the escalation;the panic; the ATMOSPHERE, basically, that people were living in in regards to the information being presented to them. I really want newspaper articles, but TIME magazine should have some intersting report’s. Haven’t found anything worth sharing yet!
Will check out the article in the The Lancet! Cheer’s.
Do you know of any of the front line headlines at the time in any of the newspaper’s.
I looked up NYTimes, Like LB suggested, and found two early articles from like 1916 and 1920- but you had to pay for them !.
(It might come to that!)
Apparently that Flu started in 1916…still fishing around!
Hard pressed to come up with anything…
I have a question for you computer wizards- I expect that there may be increased internet traffic from places where there are clusters and outbreaks before the news gets out to the general public.
Is there a way to get general internet traffic levels by countries? or between countries?
DennisC – at 15:40
I like the way you think. Question: these are pretty remote hamlets where they sleep with chickens and believe the witch doctor is more powerful than the real doctors at some far away hospital. Do you think there are enough computers with access to the Internet in these areas?
Just playing devil’s advocate.
: )
I haven’t seen many computers in chicken coops (a few, but not many). I was think that the entire health care system of a country would go “hot”. Please excuss my thinking (or lack there off) it was all those NSA traffic analysis courses.
Some one out there should have traffic by domains. Any takers?
Was it solely the lack of MSM that led to the 1918 being so catastrophic?
Blue – at 18:33 I don’t think MSM would have had much effect. When nature releases a tidal wave, not much can be done. Some can go to the mountaintops but the cities are destroyed just the same. With a pandemic, no mountaintop where birds can fly will be free of the virus.
Well, I would contend that the epidemics of 1957/1969 were killed off by the alerts given by the MSM. When there were no Media Blackouts. Would that be fair to say?
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