I feel everyone has a right to their own opinion. And my opinion on the origin of the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919 is at variance with current accepted theory. The Spanish Flu pandemic is very different than the yearly Influenza pandemic in that instead of targeting the elderly or the very young, it killed the healthy able bodied and young adults. [An unusual characteristic of this virus was the high death rate it caused among healthy adults 15 to 34 years of age.]
In my opinion, the infection transferred from horses to humans through aerosolization of horse manure and spread by strong winds into the throats of young soldiers.
A couple of decades ago, scientists obtained a sample of the virus from an Inuit woman who contracted the disease and died and was buried in the permafrost of Alaska. They sequenced the genetic structure and noted that the virus had a number of mammalian as opposed to avian adaptations. The gene sequencing coding was placed on-line and I had a chance to view it at the time. [Refer to The Deadliest Flu: The Complete Story of the Discovery and Reconstruction of the 1918 Pandemic Virus] What I observed was that large portions of the coding matched equine (horse sequencing).
In the First World War, not only were the young men drafted into becoming soldiers but also a large portion of the horse population. There were an estimated 20 million horses in March 1915 in the United States. A USDA census in 1959 showed the horse population had dropped to 4.5 million. Numbers began to rebound somewhat, and by 1968 there were about 7 million horses, mostly used for riding. In 2005, there were about 9 million horses.
The following is a narrative of the origin of the pandemic:
* One day in the spring of 1918, soldiers at [Camp Funston in] Fort Riley, Kansas, burned tons of horse manure. A choking dust storm kicked up and swept over the prairie. The sky went black and all the soldiers at Fort Riley ran for cover. The storm raged for hours, then suddenly it stopped. Fort Riley was covered with a dense shroud of dirt and ash. The soldiers were ordered to clean up the mess. They worked long past midnight, sweeping, raking, shoveling, and coughing.
* On Monday March 11, 1918 - two days after the dust storm - Private Albert Gitchell, a cook, reported to the camp hospital before breakfast. He had a fever, sore throat, and headache. The symptoms indicated just a normal flu, however by noon that same day the hospital had 107 cases reported. Within the next month, the hospital saw well over a thousand.
* Many soldiers perished from influenza that spring. The cause of death was recorded as pneumonia in every case. The symptoms were highly unusual, including labored breathing, violent coughs, and projectile nosebleeds. Faces would turn an ashen blue. They often had high fevers, and their bodily functions were depressed. Autopsies revealed widespread bloody hemorrhage and swelling of the lungs. Patients literally suffocated from their bloody, fluid-filled lungs. Young, healthy men became sick and died within a matter of days, sometimes only hours. The people who influenza usually spared were dying of this flu.
[Source: Lynette Iezzoni, Influenza 1918 (New York: TVBooks L.L.C., 1999)]
Last edited by jimmy m on 06 Apr 2020, 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
06 Apr 2020, 12:33 pm
