Click2Disasters - The Spanish Flu - Chapter 7 - Pictures of Chaos

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>SPANISH FLU</b></font> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 7 - PICTURES OF CHAOS</b></font></p> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Pictures from official archives provide a glimpse of those troubled times when Americans experienced “the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/" target="_blank"><b>worst epidemic</b></a> the United States has ever known.”</p><ul> <li>As flu quickly spread, local governments around the country closed places where people congregate. Theaters were <a href="images/shutdown.jpg" target="_blank"><b>shut down</b></a>. So were schools where students, like those in <a href="http://www.sandiegohistory.org/stranger/images/flumask.jpg" target="_blank"><b>San Diego</b></a>, wore face masks.</li><br><br> <li>During October of 1918, as the war took its toll on soldiers and treasured European buildings (like the <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/28/9/28-0900a.gif" target="_blank"><b>St. Quentin Cathedral</b></a> in France), the Spanish Flu took its toll on the American population. More Americans died in October of that year than any other month during the epidemic.</li><br><br> <li><a href="images/fluvillages.Smith19.jpg" target="_blank"><b>Flu villages</b></a>, where sick people did their best to cope in <a href="images/tents.Smith20.jpg" target="_blank"><b>tents</b></a>, were another way to <a href="images/isolate.Smith18.jpg" target="_blank"><b>isolate</b></a> the well from the ill.</li><br><br> <li>Convalescing <a href="images/patients.Smith3.jpg" target="_blank"><b>patients</b></a> were cared for outdoors. Despite such precautions, at least 25% of the U.S. population got the flu during 1918.</li><br><br> <li>By November, the worst month of deaths had passed. But doctors at Love Field, in Texas, were still <a href="images/spraying.Rve33986.jpg" target="_blank"><b>spraying</b></a> the throats of soldiers in an effort to ward off the illness.</li><br><br> <li>In February of 1919, American soldiers (like this unfortunate flu <a href="images/victim.Rve15943a.jpg" target="_blank"><b>victim</b></a> in Bordeaux) were still <a href="images/dying.Rve15942.jpg" target="_blank"><b>dying</b></a> in France.</li><br><br> <li>Alexander Graham Bell (in a <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/mss/magbell/044/04400309/0001.gif" target="_blank"><b>letter</b></a> to his wife) <a href="http://memory.loc.gov/mss/magbell/044/04400309/0002.gif" target="_blank"><b>discussed</b></a> the devastating effects of Spanish Influenza.</li></ul> <p>People everywhere were debilitated by the disease. But because so many countries were involved in World War I, censorship in belligerent nations kept the bad news, for the most part, out of the papers. That, at least in part, may help to explain why a worldwide 20th century disaster is so little known today.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="spanish_flu_ch6.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="spanish_flu_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="spanish_flu_ch8.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>