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Vintage Photos Captured People Gargling To Against The Flu From The Early 20th Century

Children at Sneed Road school gargling as a defense against influenza, 1931.

Getty Images

The flu arrived as a great war raged in Europe, a conflict that would leave about 20 million people dead over four years. In 1918, the flu would kill more than twice that number – and perhaps five times as many – in just 15 months. Though mostly forgotten, it has been called “the greatest medical holocaust in history.” Continue reading »

Haunting Colorized Photos Reveal The Devastation Caused By The Spanish Flu Which Killed At Least Fifty-Million

A Kansas hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 that still lives large in people’s imaginations.

Mediadrumimages

These seldom seen photographs, colorized for the first time, graphically depict the scale of the pandemic. The images reveal how doctors and nurses fought to save Spanish Flu sufferers in 1918. They show community centers and sports halls in the US converted into makeshift hospitals for the sick, while cinemas were closed and people wore face masks when they went to the park or took public transport. Continue reading »

Instructions On How To Prevent the Spread Of Influenza From 1918

Poster of Red Cross nurse with a gauze mask over her nose and mouth, published by the Illustrated Current News (New Haven, Connecticut) in October 1918, the height of the influenza pandemic. (Image: US National Library of Medicine) Continue reading »

Historical Photos Of The 1918 Spanish Flu That Show What A Global Pandemic Looked Like In The 1910s

California, 1918. The 1918 Spanish flu killed up to 50 million people around the world and has been called “the mother of all pandemics”.

Between 1918 and 1919, an outbreak of influenza spread rapidly across the world, and killed more than 50 million—and possibly as many as 100 million—people within 15 months. Continue reading »