Most people think they know everything about their recent past. For example, the Spanish flu is the largest epidemic of the early twentieth century. It seems that this epidemic has already been sorted out from all sides: the person who started the epidemic is known, the number of cases, the reasons why this epidemic was called "Spanish flu" are sorted out.
But almost everything that you know about "Spanish flu" does not correspond to real facts, even the very name "Spanish flu".
Let's start with the name … It seems to me that a very beautiful word has been chosen for the name of the largest epidemic in the history of mankind. There is some magic in it. But here's the strange thing: this word, in fact, people could not call this epidemic.
Let's first look at the official version of the origin of the name, and then I'll tell you why this could not be.
The year was 1918 … The First World War was in full swing, unfavorable conditions, devastation, cold and hunger, as well as the movement of huge masses of people contributed to the development of a huge number of infectious diseases. Among them was the flu. But since the military censorship of the opposing sides during the First World War did not allow messages about the epidemic that began in the army and among the population, the first news about it appeared in the newspapers of Spain in May-June 1918. Why Spain? Because Spain maintained neutrality and there was no military action on its territory. Spain lived an ordinary, peaceful life, and so when the largest flu outbreak occurred in Spain in May 1918 and 8 million people were infected (which is almost forty percent of the Spanish population), articles about the flu epidemic appeared in the newspapers. From Spanish newspapers the whole world learned about the terrible flu epidemic, and the place where the epidemic began was called "Spanish flu".
A very good historical version that no one doubts. But there is one very big oddity in it. Just imagine: Spain, 1918, a peaceful country, everything is fine, they do not participate in hostilities, but only grows rich, selling food and equipment to the warring parties. People go to concerts, social events. And then in May the flu appears, 40 percent of the population gets sick …
Probably, all major newspapers in Spain should write about this event on the main pages? Should you write about the death toll and preventive measures?
They should have written about it, but in reality this is not. The largest Spanish newspaper ABC, the second most important in Spain, practically does not write about the terrible flu epidemic in May 1918.
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Articles write about anything: about the situation in Russia and Europe, about decorative arts, about new submarines and even the results of the national lottery. Of course, sometimes there are articles that mention the flu. On May 16, 1918, page 18 indicates that 145 people died from the flu, 60 people with cancer, 89 from chronic bronchitis, 23 from pneumonia and 124 people from other respiratory diseases. The next mention of influenza will only be on June 4, 1918 (page 20), then June 15 on page eight.
I checked all the issues of one of the most popular Spanish newspapers for February, April, May, June 1918 and found only three references to the flu epidemic. These little articles are written practically on the last pages. But according to historical data, 8 million people fell ill in Spain during this period. It turns out that in the articles of our time they write that 40 percent of the population fell ill in Spain, only in Spain itself in 1918 they did not know about this terrible epidemic.
The newspapers of 1918 have small notes about the flu, but no one writes about the global epidemic. Judging by the ABC newspaper Spain lives an ordinary life, the Spaniards go to work, relax in the theaters and they do not even know that 40 percent of the population fell ill with a particularly dangerous flu.
Again, it is not clear how the global community first learned about the flu. According to the official version - from Spanish newspapers, only those small notes that were published on the last pages of Spanish newspapers could not have influenced the world community in any way. There were enough such messages in all European newspapers. In 1918, people were dying of pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and there were tens of thousands of such cases, and newspapers in Germany, Russia, France and other countries wrote about them. A few small articles from Spanish newspapers could not interest the world community in any way, it would simply not notice them. Therefore, the question of the name "Spanish flu" remains open, because in Spain this flu epidemic was hardly noticed. But this is if you rely on articles from newspapers in 1918. If you study history from the books of our contemporaries, then it becomes scary:How did the Spaniards survive?
Now let's move on to the next question: the huge numbers of cases and deaths around the world. They say that 550 million people fell ill, and from 55 to 70 million people died from the "Spanish flu". Just huge numbers! But it’s just not clear where they came from. Even if we agree that 550 million people worldwide fell ill, all more or less serious articles about the "Spanish flu" indicate a mortality rate of 1 to 7.5%. In the United States, "Spanish flu" claimed the lives of 675 thousand Americans. The mortality rate was as much as 3.1% of the percentage of cases. In the American army, the mortality rate among white soldiers is 1.25%, among colored people - 1.39% of the number of cases. In the French army in 1918, the mortality rate was 7.44%. In Kiev, 700 thousand cases, the mortality rate was 1.5%. In Russia, they call numbers from one and a half to three million dead,but if you listen to more or less serious specialists in this matter, for example, Vladimir Nikiforov, head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology of the Russian Medical University. Pirogov, then in his interview he bluntly said that the number of deaths in 1918 from the "Spanish flu" in Russia is impossible to say for sure, because typhus was rampant in Russia during these years and now it is simply impossible to say from what disease people died in 1918.from what disease people died in 1918.from what disease people died in 1918.
78 thousand servicemen of the British Navy became infected with the "Spanish flu", 2822 people died. Mortality rate up to 3.5%.
It turns out that according to all official data, the average death rate of cases is no more than 4%. Let's take 550 million cases. The real mortality rate is not higher than 4%. We get no more than 20 million dead. This is a huge figure, but it is not 55 million, as modern researchers like to voice.
And what is interesting: in the 20s they called about the same figure, 20 million people who died from the "Spanish flu". The 55 million figure appeared only in the 90s of the last century.
Now let's look at the attitude towards the "Spanish woman" in other countries. For some reason, no one considered her deadly in 1918. Buenos Aires, October 26, 1918. The steamers Demerara and Infanta Isabel arrived in Buenos Aires with numerous cases of influenza on board. There were several deaths during the voyage.
Health authorities have allowed passengers to disembark without any preventive measures. Don't you think this is some kind of strange situation? After all, they tell us how dangerous the "Spanish flu" was, people died in almost three days, the whole world already knew about the danger in October 1918, and here they completely calmly release sick passengers into the city without any quarantine. But Argentina was in those years one of the first places in the world in terms of living standards! And it completely calmly lets carriers of a particularly dangerous virus into its territory. Then in Buenos Aires 250 thousand people fell ill, but for some reason only 9 people died. All those killed died of pneumonia. In survivors, symptoms of the disease manifested themselves as headache, muscle pain, sore throat, high temperature. Recovery came on the fifth day.
A similar story happened at the end of November 1918. The military transport "Von Steuben" transported demobilized Americans from Europe to New York. During the trip, a flu epidemic broke out on the ship, 50 out of three thousand people died.
In general, such a particularly dangerous ship is approaching New York, but New York is not taking any preventive measures against the spread of a particularly dangerous virus, hospitals and quarantine facilities are not being prepared. On the contrary, the mayor of New York organized a parade for American heroes returning from the war. In general, the infected soldiers were able to personally communicate with tens of thousands of New Yorkers during the parade. After this parade, a wave of "Spanish flu" swept across America.
Again, we see a difficult explainable situation: a ship carrying infected people is not only not sent to quarantine, on the contrary, a special parade is organized to facilitate the transmission of infection to civilians.
Several answers are possible here. First, a deliberate sabotage, a specially created situation for the transmission of the virus to civilians. But I'm leaning towards a different version. I think that in reality the horrors of the "Spanish woman" were deliberately exaggerated after the end of the First World War. I am not denying the epidemic itself. In 1918, a flu epidemic broke out, but it was not very different from the epidemic of the late nineteenth century. There were many cases, but most of them fell ill in a mild form and recovered in a few days.
There were, of course, cases with a rapid course of the disease, but these cases were not massive. This is evidenced by the careless attitude with which ships with sick people are received in the ports of other states. Just imagine: if there were much more cases of hemorrhage in the lungs, then outwardly it would look like a manifestation of some kind of pneumonic plague or a similar terrible disease. No country in the world would allow people spitting up blood to go ashore. But all countries calmly allowed ships to enter the port.
Hence, in 1918, no one saw a serious danger in the Spanish flu. This means that at that time it was a common epidemic, and all that horror about the "Spanish woman" was invented. Later, someone specifically increased the number of cases and deaths from the "Spanish flu", they came up with 8 million cases in Spain itself.
Now it is not very clear who was profitable to overestimate the real death toll from the "Spanish flu" tenfold and attribute the "Spanish flu" to the victims of all diseases that raged in 1918, such as typhus, respiratory diseases, all pneumonia, cholera. Only one thing is clear: the Spanish flu is being promoted by the same government group that promoted swine flu a few years ago, and today - the coronavirus. Read Spanish newspapers and things will be much easier!