The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic Quotes

“However, as bad as things were, the worst was yet to come, for germs would kill more people than bullets. By the time that last fever broke and the last quarantine sign came down, the world had lost 3-5% of its population.”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

“In many ways, it is hard for modern people living in First World countries to conceive of a pandemic sweeping around the world and killing millions of people, and it is even harder to believe that something as common as influenza could cause such widespread illness and death.”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

“the Indians who were our neighbors, they were only six miles away. So Dad and the city marshal rode up there one day to see how things were going at the Indian camps and they were horrified at what they saw. After an Indian died, his family and friends would sit around chanting him to the Happy Hunting Grounds and they’d spend all night there. And, by that time, they were all exposed, everybody had the flu. Ultimately, it killed about half the Indians.”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

“Since that time there have been numerous epidemics of the disease. In 1889 and 1890 the disease was epidemic over practically the entire civilized world. Three years later there was another flare-up of the disease. Both times the epidemic spread widely over the United States. Although the recent epidemic is called ‘Spanish influenza,’ investigation has shown that it did not originate in Spain.  We now know that there was an undue prevalence of influenza in the United States for several years preceding the recent great pandemic. Because the disease occurred in mild form, and because the public mind was focused on the war, this increased prevalence of the disease escaped attention. Not until the epidemic appeared in severe form in Boston in September, 1918, did it excite any special interest.” - U.S. Public Health Service Report, prepared by Surgeon General Rupert Blue”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

“As the early outbreak at Fort Riley suggested, the primary breeding ground for the influenza consisted of army camps that were springing up all over America in the early days of 1918. America had entered World War I the previous October, and many young men were anxious to do their part and join the fight.  As a result, the camps soon became overcrowded with recruits and service veterans brought in from all over the country to train them.”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

“Ironically, it was not the flu that actually killed people but the way in which it weakened them in ways that allowed pneumonia or meningitis could set in.”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak