It started with a cough in the summer of 1918. In the next 120 days, nearly 22 million people around the world would die in one of the worst epidemics in modern times. And Philadelphia was to be the American city with the highest death toll. By Eileen A. Lynch
upenn.edu
Excerpts...
Telephone Service Faces A Crisis: The situation is one which the public must meet squarely -- 800 operators -- 27% of our force -- are now absent due to the influenza. It is every person's duty to the community to cut out every call that is not absolutely necessary that the essential needs of the government, doctors and nurses may be cared for.
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Frantic shoppers strip pharmacy shelves bare. The press of customers is so great that the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Temple University suspend classes so that pharmacy students can help fill prescriptions. Most are for whiskey, which, now that saloons are closed, is available only in drugstores. Rather than wait to become a statistic, people turn to home remedies: goose-grease poultices, sulfur fumes, onion syrup, chloride of lime.
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More than 500 corpses are awaiting burial, some for more than a week. The Office of the Coroner cannot keep up with the demand for death certificates. Cold-storage plants are used as temporary morgues, and the J.G. Brill Company, manufacturers of trolley cars, donates 200 packing crates to be used as coffins.
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A man who sneezed is forcibly ejected from a trolley by his fellow passengers.
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Little girls jump rope to a grim new rhyme:
I had a little bird
And its name was Enza
I opened the door
And in-flew-Enza. |
