The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919

In late January 1918, Dr. Loren Miner, a country physician in rural Kansas, saw the first cases of an influenza of a violent nature. With a warning to the U.S. Public Health Service, his was the lone voice of alarm about the potential spread of this virulent new strain of a particularly deadly disease. With hundreds of thousands of American servicemen crisscrossing the nation through military training camps and then to Europe to fight in World War I, an influenza pandemic wasn't just a possibility, but a certainty. It swept through congested cities and rural communities alike, killing its victims in days, sometimes in hours. No one had ever seen anything like the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919. Before the deadly disease ran its course in 1919, more American soldiers died from the flu than in combat, more than one-fifth of the world's population was infected, and as many as 100 million people worldwide died from the disease that caused the most devastating pandemic in history.