This article is from WeChat public account: World Knowledge Bureau (ID: sjzhishiju) , author: Nie Po Yan, editing: blue flowers, from the title figure: the documentary “pandemic killed 50 million people”
An epidemic, a sword of Damocles hanging over humans.
This sword has been dropped three times so far, one is the black death that is raging on the European continent, one is the vicious Spanish flu, and the third is a new type of coronary pneumonia that has not eliminated the threat.
The number of deaths caused by epidemics far exceeds the sum of the deaths of the two world wars.
History has always been the best textbook for human beings in the face of large-scale threats. Recently, a 105-year-old Spanish elderly man named José Ameal Pea expressed concern about the current epidemic. In 1918, when the Spanish pandemic broke out, he was still a four-year-old child. This centenarian is likely to be the only survivor of the Spanish pandemic.
“The same thing is happening again, even though it is a different era.”
And this documentary, using a large number of personal reports and records of personal experience, shows us a cruel textbook of human history, the title is-
“Influenza that killed 50 million people” .
1. The seed of the plague: Patient 0 quietly appearing
The lens was cut to 1918.
On a sunny day in March, Albert Gitcher, a young man from the rural Kansas State of America, hummed a little song while carrying a bucket of food to the duckhouse.
The ducks were immediately excited, and rushed to Albert’s hand. You scrambled to eat, and it seemed extremely intimate. The quiet and fresh air on the farm made this simple young man feel a little sad: This may be the last time he fed ducks before going to the battlefield .
The above are the actors in the documentary, not real people in history
A few days later, he was recruited into the military camp in Kansas. Albert, who grew up on the farm, had some cooking experience. This talent made him a cook.
Kansas ’military camp was full of 56,000 during World War I and was the second largest training base in the United States at the time.
In addition to training, Albert has to cook for tens of thousands of people. This was exactly the beginning of 1918, the World War I had been going on for several years, and everything had to be held close to the front line, and the rear supplies were quite inadequate. He was so worried that he turned around at night. The big brothers of the tiger had a decent meal.
The environment in the training camp is very harsh, it is overcrowded, and the military training is too tired to make people peel. Many soldiers play gambling during the break. You pass me a set of poker cards, I pass him, a cigarette butt you sip, I sip, and it has been built before the front lineEstablished a solid brotherhood.
Probably because the bed in the small dormitory is not used to sleeping, and kicks the quilt over and over at night, this sturdy young man who has just joined the army soon caught a cold. However, for the soldiers’ food and clothing, he still insisted on working hard in the first-line kitchen.
Needless to say, “good” hygiene habits quickly caused flu in the military camp where brothers loved one another.
Spring has always been a season of high incidence of seasonal flu. Although there are already 38 soldiers among more than a thousand infected people, But the Washington government at that time felt not afraid: they could not withdraw their troops for the small flu. Does not hurt morale?
So, the Kansas training camp was quickly promoted to the European battlefield.
The team was so energetic that they crossed New York and Philadelphia, and then across the Atlantic Ocean. After arriving in France, they took the train again. After many twists and turns, they finally reached the front line in April 1918.
The Washington government did not expect that this high morale army brought to the front, in addition to the determination to defend against the enemy, and the devastating flu virus that they ignored.
2. Strange disease more terrible than battlefield
In May, the front trench beginsA strange disease is prevalent. The sick person first coughs, sneezes, has a terrible headache, and is weak. Then his ears and lips are blue and he ca n’t breathe. Then he starts coughing up the blood foam, and a thick gauze just pressed The patient’s mouth was saturated with coughed blood within a few minutes.
The young and handsome guys had suffered from the disease before they could get to the battlefield. A few days ago, they looked at someone who was still alive and running around the train, and he was gone.
The wounded were lifted down from the front line like the patient ’s running water. The frontline medical staff did not expect this situation at all. There was a serious shortage of manpower. Every day, he was too busy to touch the ground, and he could only desperately, staring at the reception. One patient died of coughing up blood.
Allied senior officials finally noticed this unusual situation.
In crowded front trenches, lice, fleas, and bed bugs are the most loyal partners of soldiers. The hygienic conditions are worrying, which is not conducive to the rehabilitation of patients, and it is not conducive to the isolation and cutoff of infectious diseases. The soldiers escorted these patients back to the country for treatment.
So, these patients arrived at the first stop back home: Manchester.
During the First World War, long-distance transportation mainly relied on ships and trains. Manchester ’s port was the largest industrial town in Britain at that time. The supplies were very sufficient. It was just an isolated observation and residence for patients. Ye Shengsheng.