Bacteria Fingered As Killer In 1918 Flu Pandemic

[okarol]

Bacteria Fingered As Killer In 1918 Flu Pandemic

by Joanne Silberner

Audio for this story will be available at approx. 9:00 a.m. ET

Morning Edition, August 20, 2008 · What killed tens of millions of people around the world in the 1918 flu pandemic actually might not have been a flu virus. A new study in the Journal of Infectious Diseases blames different agents: bacteria.

The flu virus weakened lungs, opening the door to fatal bacterial pneumonia in most of the pandemic's 50 million victims, according to researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The researchers based their findings on preserved lung tissue from 58 soldiers who were infected by the flu and died in 1918 and 1919. They found tissue changes that are the hallmarks of bacteria, not viruses, as well as the destruction of cells that normally protect lungs from bacteria.

They also studied case reports from 1918 in which doctors said they suspected a second infection. One doctor said that the flu "condemns," but secondary infections "execute."

The new research suggests that with the availability of effective treatments for bacterial infections, a modern-day flu pandemic might not be so deadly.
 
Origins Of The 1918 Pandemic

It's not often that you find countries fighting to claim credit for the birth of an epidemic.
 
But when it comes to the deadliest pandemic in history, scientists from two superpowers are calling dibs rather than pointing fingers.
 
Read That Story -> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5222069

 
1918 Killer Flu Reconstructed

The virus that killed tens of millions worldwide after it appeared in 1918 has been recreated in the virological equivalent of the Jurassic Park story.
 
Scientists rebuilt it from pieces of genetic material retrieved from the lungs of people who died 87 years ago.
 
Read That Story -> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4946718

NPR link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93747214
 
 

[Chris]

I can't remember hearing about this in history classes or lately in the biology classes I have taken. Interesting news.

[2_DallasCowboys]

This is so interesting!  My great grandmother died during
this flu epidemic -  my mother was only 2 yrs old when
she lost her Mom.
Also, the area where they lived was a section filled with
other Italian immigrants - many of them died, also.
by the way, Influenza means Influence in Italian

Anne

[monrein]

My mother-in-law was born in 1918 right in the middle of the flu epidemic.  She's an only child and her parents were really worried.  She

[stauffenberg]

Long before the germ theory of disease was developed, it was believed that some changes in the air could cause and spread disease, and that is where we get the expression 'malaria' for one type of disease, meaning literally 'bad air.'  The Italian 'influenza' comes from the same medical theory that some invisible 'influence' was being propagated through the air to cause disease.  During the Great Plague in Europe, the Pope's doctors had him spend all his time sitting in a chair surrounded by blazing fires, in the belief that the fires would destroy any toxic effects being spread through the air before they would harm him.

There are many lethal viruses in history whose cause and exact nature are still unknown today, so if they recur, we may not be able to know what to do to treat them.  One of these is the plague which affected Athens during the war with Sparta, and another more recent one was called 'the English sweating sickness' (Sudor Anglicus), which caused huge numbers of people to break out in a sudden sweat and die within a few days.  Henry VIII fled London to a rural residence during one of the last outbreaks of this disease, since already in his time doctors knew that disease was more likely to spread where more people were concentrated, though they did not know why.  Some modern historians of medicine believe that this disease may not have been a virus at all, but instead a mold that grew on grain used for making bread during certain seasons of the year if there was more rain than usual.