Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world

Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world

What was the Spanish flu pandemic?

The H1N1 influenza virus was one of the deadliest disasters in history. Between the first recorded case in March 1918 and the last in March 1920, an estimated 50 million people died, though some experts suggest that the total might actually have been twice that number.

The ‘Spanish flu’ killed more than the First World War, possibly more even than the Second World War – indeed, perhaps more than both put together.

The pandemic struck at a critical juncture in the evolution of understanding of infectious disease. Well into the 19th century, epidemics were considered acts of god – a notion that dated back to the Middle Ages. Bacteria were first observed in the 17th century, but initially weren’t connected with human illnesses. In the late 1850s the French biologist Louis Pasteur made the connection between micro-organisms and disease, and from a couple of decades later German microbiologist Robert Koch furthered modern concepts of infectious disease. ‘Germ theory’ was disseminated far and wide, slowly replacing more fatalistic ideas.

By the 20th century the application of germ theory, combined with improvements in hygiene and sanitation, had made significant inroads against the so-called ‘crowd’ diseases that afflicted human communities, especially those inhabiting the great cities that had mushroomed in the wake of the industrial revolution. Throughout the 19th century, so many urbanites had been lost to such diseases – cholera, typhus and tuberculosis, to name but three – that cities needed a steady influx of healthy peasants from the countryside to keep up their numbers. Now, at last, they had become self-sustaining.

When scientists thought about ‘germs’ in the early 20th century, they generally thought about bacteria. The virus was a novel concept; the first virus, discovered in 1892, infected tobacco plants and had been detected indirectly by its ability to transmit disease. Unlike many bacteria, it was too small to be seen through an optical microscope. Without having actually seen viruses, scientists debated their nature: were they organism or toxin, liquid or particle, dead or alive? They were veiled in mystery, and nobody suspected that they could be the cause of flu.

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