OPINION

A deadly epidemic of 1918

Recent news accounts that reveal epidemiologists in 36 states (including Arkansas) already have reported widespread influenza activity to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remind me of the great flu epidemic of 1918. The epidemic was for many people a defining moment that burned brightly in their memories for the rest of their days.

One summer night when I was a child I spent the weekend with a friend. We rode our bicycles to his grandfather's home to spend the night. In the gathering gloom of the evening we sat on the front porch and listened as the elderly gentleman recalled his youthful experiences during the epidemic.

He described how his family prepared food and traveled by wagon to a neighboring farm to sit up with a family that had lost a daughter to the flu. Upon reaching the home the visitors were horrified to find both parents also dead and a second child sick. They sat up with three corpses that night, and the sick child who recovered.

Multiple deaths in the same family were not unusual. An estimated 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 flu epidemic--more than all Americans who died in both world wars. Worldwide deaths were estimated at 21 million to 50 million. Accurate figures are not available, but it is estimated that 7,000 Arkansans perished.

Kim Allen Scott, the major student of the epidemic in Arkansas, has noted, "Influenza has been known to visit man since the dawn of recorded history, but not until the early 16th century did the Italians name the malady by attributing it to the 'influence' of the stars." The French later called the disease "la grippe," a name that was used in America until the 20th century. The 1918 epidemic was referred to as the Spanish flu, but no one knows where it originated. Regardless of its country of origin, it was caused by a virus.

Unlike many other epidemics, the 1918 flu killed a disproportionate number of young adults rather than infants and the elderly. One reason for this might be that it struck hard at World War I military bases where large numbers of young men were congregated.

Some evidence suggests the epidemic reached America in early September 1918 in Massachusetts, where 265 people died within two weeks. In Arkansas and many other states, health authorities at first downplayed the epidemic. Dr. James C. Geiger, the U.S. Public Health Service officer in Arkansas, reassured residents that this was "simple, plain old-fashioned la grippe." As late as Oct. 4, Geiger optimistically told the press that the "situation [is] still well in hand," though a total of 506 cases had already been reported in the greater Little Rock area.

By Oct. 7, the Arkansas Board of Health could no longer avoid the reality of the peril, and a quarantine was declared for the whole state. Particularly hard hit was Camp Pike in North Little Rock. In September alone, 7,600 of the 52,000 soldiers at the Camp came down with the flu. On Oct. 3, Camp Pike was placed under a total quarantine, with all public gatherings canceled.

Still, the doughboys at Camp Pike continued to sicken and die. The army assigned nine embalmers to Owens Funeral Home in North Little Rock to help accommodate the growing numbers of dead.

Family doctors fought hard to comfort the sick. In Independence County, Dr. Christopher Columbus Gray drafted his two sons to drive him around the county in his new Maxwell automobile, so the exhausted physician could take naps between visiting patients.

The medical community suffered its share of fatalities. Five doctors died in Fayetteville and Fort Smith alone. Even the formerly optimistic Dr. Geiger himself contracted the disease, but he survived; his wife, Florence, was not so lucky.

By the end of October the epidemic was in decline. On Oct. 26, health officials announced that streetcars could operate at full capacity, stores could remain open at nights, and pool halls were allowed to reopen "for players only ... loafing within pool rooms will not be permitted." The entire state was released from quarantine restrictions on Nov. 11, 1918, the same day the war ended in Europe.

Tom Dillard, a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in Hot Spring County, is down with the flu. This is a version of a column that ran Nov. 8, 2009. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.

Editorial on 01/07/2018

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