If you're worried about the possibility of a coming bird flu epidemic,
you can take comfort in the fact that humanity has survived a similar influenza
epidemic in the past. Starting its rounds at the end of World War Ⅰ, the 1918
flu killed an estimated 50 million people. Popularly known as
the Spanish Flu, this type of influenza was far worse than your common cold.
Normally, influenza only kills those who are more vulnerable to disease, such as
newborns, the old or the sick. However, the Spanish Flu was prone to killing the
young and healthy. Often it would disable its victims in hours; within a day,
they would be dead, typically from extreme cases of pneumonia (肺炎).
The Spanish Flu was quite nasty-fast-spreading and deadly. It managed to
spread across the globe, devastating the world. Then suddenly, after two years
ravaging (蹂躏) the Earth, it disappeared as quickly as it had arisen.
Despite its nickname, the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain. Its
true origins are unknown. Some believe it started in US forts and then spread to
Europe as America joined the war; others think that it populated the trenches of
the English and the French and eventually broke out in 1918. Regardless of where
it started, eventually a fifth of the world population suffered the disease,
with a global mortality rate (死亡率) estimated at 2.5% of the
population. Modernity was partly to blame for the quick spread
of the disease. It passed throughout the world on trade routes and shipping
lines. It hit Northern America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the South Pacific. The
war did not help at all-the movement of supplies and troops aided the spread of
the Spanish Flu, as well as the trench warfare. Imagine the speed at which a
virus can spread in a crowded ditch. The fast emergence of the virus in the
trenches caused some soldiers to believe that the Spanish Flu was a new form of
biological warfare. Luckily, the Spanish Flu simply vanished by
1920. It is believed the flu simply ran out of fuel to spread.