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The Worst Flu Season in Wisconsin History
While winter in Wisconsin usually means snow, ice, and frigid temperatures, winter is also peak flu season. As many as 90 million people come down with the flu each year in the United States, so if you have the flu, you have lots of company. This familiar winter ailment took an especially deadly turn in 1918, however, when the Spanish flu, or "la grippe," brought terror and devastation both here in Wisconsin and around the world.
Between September and the end of December 1918, more than 8,400 Wisconsin residents died of influenza. Declared by the State Board of Health as the most "disastrous calamity that has ever been visited upon the people of Wisconsin," the Spanish flu had swept across America in under seven days, infecting more than 100,000 people in Wisconsin alone. These newspaper articles from September and October 1918 capture some of the fear that gripped communities stricken by the flu. The devastation wrought by the flu in just a few short months claimed an estimated 50 million lives worldwide and remains to this day the most destructive disease pandemic in history.
Influenza is one of the oldest and most common diseases in the world — and also one of the deadliest. The origin of this particularly deadly strain of flu, known as "Spanish influenza," was obscure and unlike the common flu. It came on without warning. With its short incubation period and quick onset of symptoms, the flu rapidly overtook healthy people and killed more young adults than any other age group.
The State Board of Health, created in 1876, together with local public health officials, responded to the health crisis with one of the best influenza control programs in the country. These uniform, statewide measures, described, in part, in these health bulletins, reduced the number of flu-related deaths and earned Wisconsin one of the lowest death rates in the country. This report lists the number of deaths attributed to the flu by county.
Wisconsin's first cases were reported on September 28, 1918, in Milwaukee. The State Health Officer, Dr. Cornelius Harper, swung immediately into action, initiating a statewide health education campaign. He urged people to avoid theaters and mass meetings, issued sanctions against public coughing and spitting, and encouraged local governments to quarantine the infected. Broadsides such as this one from Sauk County offered suggestions on how to contain the spread of disease, and quarantine signs were posted by health officials to isolate infected victims. As the situation deteriorated further in October, Harper ordered all public institutions, such as schools, theaters and movie theaters closed.
The epidemic began to lessen after the New Year as cold weather forced people indoors, reducing their chances of contracting the disease. The last flu deaths were recorded in May of 1919.
Today it is hard to imagine that all public places and activities could be shut down for several months, but the flu season of 1918-1919 was indeed an extraordinary event in Wisconsin and world history. Read more about Wisconsin's response to the flu epidemic in the Wisconsin Magazine of History.
Image courtesy of the
National Museum of Health and Medicine, Armed Forces Institute of
Pathology, Washington, D.C. NCP 1603
:: Posted January 30, 2006
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