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Recently I saw the movie Contagion at the Skyline Drive-in. I thought it caught the possibility and ramifications of a worldwide pandemic very well and also nearly made an obsessive hand washer out of me. In the movie they mention the Spanish Influenza epidemic a number of times. This is a subject that I had read about and also influenced our local area in interesting and deadly ways.

The influenza pandemic of 1918 started in the trenches of World War I. In the spring of that year soldiers came down with a minor flu that seemed to last only three days and was over . Soldiers called the flu the Spanish Flu; the Spanish called it the French Flu. No one knows for certain where the flu started. Some say it started in battles in the Middle East, in China or one study might link it to then remote Haskell County, Kansas.

The flu continued with a few fatalities until the summer when things turned for the worse. The flu traveled over to the German side and somehow became much more deadly. In 1918, 400,000 German citizens died of the flu. So many German soldiers died of the flu that it forced the German leaders into the talks for peace that were ended successfully on November 11. The war also played a part in the spread of the disease. Soldiers arriving home from the front are believed to have brought it home,or back to the United States, with them and troop ships that traveled from port to port also helped spread the disease.

The flu of 1918 had some interesting characteristics that goes against modern thought on the disease. In modern times most deaths from the flu occur in the elderly, the very young and people who are already ill. The flu of 1918 killed mainly people 20-40 years old. Another nasty aspect of the flu was that it killed very rapidly. There are many stories of people first showing symptoms and then dying overnight.

In our area the flu came in late October, early November of that year. In the November 7 Printer it was announced that a meeting was called on what do about the pandemic. One idea was first used in Needles. Citizens there started an influenza hospital which was coordinated by their Red Cross. Luckily the Red Cross was already active in the area due to the war effort. The local High School was used as Barstow’s hospital and Newberry Springs used Echo Ranch as a hospital. In the Spring of 1918 the original Barstow Union High School (which was a yellow frame house west of where First and William Streets) had blown up and burned in a possible kitchen accident. Until the new High School, which would be located where the El Rancho is today, was built the school was moved to two locations, the Free Methodist Church, and a dormitory building used by students who had to travel to get to Barstow and school on Cottage Street. It wasn’t specified which of the two buildings were used as the hospital but it seems that the dormitory was the more logical choice.

The High School was closed at that time on an “influenza vacation.” A Professor Thomas was the first to get the flu at the school. When he got worse, the next day the school was closed.The hospital was originally run by Doctor Anderson who was later replaced by Doctor C. L. Carver. No reason was given for the change but I bet Anderson got sick.

The Red Cross, besides providing medical support and assistance, also provided practical help. The ladies of the Red Cross contributed to the war effort by knitting socks and sweaters for soldiers on the front. When the pandemic hit they switched their efforts to the patients. They sewed pajamas, knitted socks and knitted “influenza” jackets.

One interesting aspect of the flu in our area is that there seemed to be discrimination against Mexicans in the treatment of the disease. All the names listed in the Printer as staying at the hospital were of Anglo origin and it was mentioned a number of times that Mexicans were treated at home. When it was announced how many people had the flu the Mexicans were listed as a separate category. In the November 14 Printer it was reported that the influenza was worse in the “Mexican quarter” and that there were three deaths that week. Other reports show that most of the sufferers, despite their race, stayed at home especially those living in the outlying areas.

The flu seemed to have run its course by the beginning of the New Year, no reports of the number of casualties were given.

It is estimated that world wide close to 20-40 million people died. It is also estimated that in the months that the flu raged through America, September 1918 to June 1919, 28% of our population were infected with 500,00-675,000 Americans dead, so many that our average life expectancy dropped by ten years. Our modern plague, AIDS, has killed 501,669 in the US and 2.6-3.3 million worldwide.

We learned our lessons from the pandemic. Subsequent flu pandemics in the 30s and 50s never reached the degree of the 1918 pandemic. Due to the fact that influenza mutates regularly and due to modern treatment methods and preventative measures, it may be unlikely that another pandemic of 1918 will happen again.

To read more about the flu and how to prevent it go to Center for Disease Control’s website at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/. For a good documentary of the pandemic http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/influenza/player/

to read a scholarly article arguing that Haskell Kansas might have been the place where the pandemic started go here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/ and for a great state by state run down of the pandemic http://1918.pandemicflu.gov/your_state/index.htm.

Contagion is playing all week with The Help at the Skyline Drive-In , both are good movies and well worth a night out. Me, I am going to go wash my hands. . .again.