1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say

[Shiloh]

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...u-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/


1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say
Chinese laborers transported across Canada thought to be source.
Dan Vergano

National Geographic

Published January 23, 2014

The global flu outbreak of 1918 killed 50 million people worldwide, ranking as one of the deadliest epidemics in history.

For decades, scientists have debated where in the world the pandemic started, variously pinpointing its origins in France, China, the American Midwest, and beyond. Without a clear location, scientists have lacked a complete picture of the conditions that bred the disease and factors that might lead to similar outbreaks in the future.

The deadly "Spanish flu" claimed more lives than World War I, which ended the same year the pandemic struck. Now, new research is placing the flu's emergence in a forgotten episode of World War I: the shipment of Chinese laborers across Canada in sealed train cars...

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say

Intriguing article but it doesn't explain the March, 1917 outbreak at Ft. Riley Kansas. I wonder if someone in the medical profession attended the sick Chinese in Canada then left for Ft. Riley?

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say

Paths of Infection: The First World War and the Origins of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

1. Mark Osborne Humphries

1. <ADDRESS>Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada</ADDRESS>

1. Mark Osborne Humphries, Department of History, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Arts & Administration Building, Room A4019, St John?s, NF NL A1C 5S7, Canada. Email: mhumphries@mun.ca

Abstract

The origin site for the 1918 influenza pandemic which killed more than 50 million people worldwide has been hotly debated. While the mid-western United States, France, and China have all been identified as potential candidates by medical researchers, the military context for the pandemic has been all but ignored. Conversely, military historians have paid little attention to a deadly disease which underlines the reciprocal relationship between battlefield and home front. This paper re-examines the debate about the origins and diffusion of the 1918 flu within the context of global war, bridging gaps between social, medical, and military history in the process. A multidisciplinary perspective combined with new research in British and Canadian archives reveals that the 1918 flu most likely emerged first in China in the winter of 1917?18, diffusing across the world as previously isolated populations came into contact with one another on the battlefields of Europe. Ethnocentric fears ? both official and popular ? facilitated its spread along military pathways that had been carved out across the globe to sustain the war effort on the Western Front.

http://wih.sagepub.com/content/21/1/55.abstract?etoc

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This item requires a subscription to War in History.

Full Text (PDF)Articles:

• Mark Osborne Humphries

Paths of Infection: The First World War and the Origins of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic <CITE>War in History January 2014 21: 55-81, </CITE>
<CITE></CITE>
<CITE>http://wih.sagepub.com/content/21/1/55.full.pdf</CITE>
<CITE></CITE>

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say

What changed the course of my life was a paper I wrote in college about the 1918 pandemic. I was fascinated by the disease, its spread, who it targeted and how it affected the war. All my research came from books- not the internet. I remember my glee when a book from the inter-library loan would arrive. I came to the conclusion that Ft. Riley was the starting point for the first pig to human strain. There were a lot of pig farms in the area and this flu suddenly appeared to erupt overnight. The data I found appeared to indicate a cook was the first victim. I can just see this chef, not much more than a kid, butchering a pig, cooking it, then after his symptoms started coughing all over the food he served. Further research showed the second and far more deadly strains erupting virtually on the same day thousands of miles apart. One in France and one off the coast of Africa.

The out of China scenario actually makes more sense as virtually all new strains are born in that part of the world. However, I would like some kind of smoking gun that would show how a sick Chinese worker infected someone 1,000 miles away. If the Chinese were quarantined the only person who might have been the carrier was someone in the medical profession who had ties to the war effort both in Canada and in the US. I wonder?

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: 1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say

I do not know this book but if the H1N1 was from wild birds this may be possible, theoretically.

In Europe, notably in northern Italy poultry die-off preceded the start of human cases (perhaps earlier in 1916).

Other historical accounts that made a comparison between the concurrent pandemic of sleepy sickness, dated back in 1916 in some regions of Austria, Germany, Italy, UK the first cases of H1 flu infections followed by the encephalopaty.

As happened during the 1889-90 pandemic, some rural locations in depressed Italy regions suffered the flu and then the sleepy sickness. Notably, survivors of the 'Nona' flu seemed to be less vulnerable to the new '18 virus, although recent papers suggested that the two strains were too much distant to grant a partial immunity to older people.

China, in 1888, was literally another world for Europe.

Notwithstanding the long travel time needed, wild birds may have transported the virus to local backyard poultry reared by europeans for meat.