Deja flu? Local physician’s response to SpanishFlu strikingly similar to current advice

This article was originally published in The Cass City Chronicle (Cass City, Michigan) in the April 1, 2020 edition.

Editor’s note: The following story was submitted by former longtime Cass City area resident and historian Ty Perry, who today resides in Las Vegas with his wife and daughter. “Recently, I was thinking about the Covid-19 pandemic and how similar the reactions/precautions are to those of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918,” Perry commented. “I decided to do some digging around on the Chronicle archives to read about what was happening in town at that time, and I was fascinated by the similarities.”

Dr. Loring Miner was doctor to Haskell County, Kansas’ 1,720 residents. He enjoyed reading Greek classics and tending his small medical parish. But in the first two months of 1918, his life and practice suddenly became less routine.

The people of Haskell County were presenting with influenza symptoms, if they ever were able to present with them in the first place. Many of the county’s strongest and healthiest young people were dying unexpectedly, first experiencing chills, fatigue, and fever, then developing pneumonia and suffocating to death.

Although the illness’ spread was localized and soon ended, Dr. Miner was concerned. He alerted officials at Public Health Reports, a weekly medical journal that notified physicians of outbreaks, to the strange case of Haskell County. His warnings went unheeded.

In the fall of 1918, however, people around the world began experiencing similar symptoms to those of Dr. Miner’s patients. Throughout Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, healthy young people fell victim to the flu symptoms, which quickly morphed into pneumonia. Victims’ skin turned blue and their lungs filled with fluid, ultimately suffocating them to death. Soon, the disease became known as Spanish Influenza, due to its especially deadly impact on the people of Spain.

In Cass City, word of the pandemic had residents and civic leaders on edge. A special meeting of the village council was held on October 12 “for the purpose of taking action regarding ‘Spanish Influenza’.” The only problem was that little could be done. There were no vaccines or antibiotics. The only thing officials could do was to advocate quarantine and good hygiene.

Dr. F.L. Morris, the village health officer, reported that, while no cases of the flu had been reported in the town, precautions should be taken to prevent it. The village council responded by banning all public gatherings and closing the town’s “school, churches, lodges and theaters”, from Sunday, October 13 through Monday, October 21. Hopefully, by then the mounting tide would be stemmed.

Word of the global scale of the pandemic and its vicious spread alarmed Dr. Morris, aware that the end was not in sight, suggested the ban on public gatherings be extended indefinitely. At the October 25 village council meeting, Morris reported that there were several confirmed cases of the flu within the village limits, a startling fact considering there had been no cases reported just a week earlier. “Influenza cards” were printed and placed on the doors of infected homes as warnings to would-be visitors to stay away.

Dr. Morris told the Chronicle that the flu “is infectious by direct contact and if we do not run into it, we stand 99 chances of not getting it. So we will ask you again, be patriotic and stay at home. There are several cases in the country and it has been deemed wise not to open the windows at the post office on Saturday night and please do not congregate there or any other place.”

Unfortunately, some in the community did not heed the doctor’s orders. Thinking their symptoms were mild or that they had become well, the sick gathered with healthy members of the community and transmitted the flu to them. The train depot closed, because all of its staff had contracted the flu, doubtless caused by their frequent contact with people going to and from the city. In Caro, the sugar factory was forced to close, due to a shortage of healthy men to work it. By November 15, there were 80 cases of the illness in Cass City and the village had run out of cards to put on the doors of those infected.

So bad was the spread of the flu that William C. Gorgas, Surgeon-General of the U.S. Army, offered the following guidelines for the public to avoid contracting it:

1.) Avoid needless crowding; influenza is a crowd disease
2.) Smother your coughs and sneezes; others do not want the germs you would throw away.
3.) Your nose, not your mouth, was made to breathe through. Get the habit.
4.) Remember the three C’s--a clean mouth, a clean skin, and clean clothes
5.) Try to keep cool when you walk and warm when you ride and sleep.
6.) Open the windows always at home at night; at the office when practicable.
7.) Choose and chew your food well.

On November 11, the armistice was signed by the Allies and Germany, bringing World War I to an end. But for Cass City residents, the good news would soon be mingled with tragedy.

In early November, a 32-year-old Cass City native, Edward Kissane, visited Port Huron. A few days after his return to town, Kissane’s neighbors noticed that they had not seen him around his place for a while and decided to check on him. What they found was a severely sick Kissane, who was beyond medical help. He died on November 15, the first and only casualty of the flu inside the village limits.

Despite Kissane’s untimely death, by November 22 local and state officials were cautiously optimistic that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Dr. Morris, who had himself contracted the flu a few weeks earlier, announced that the number of cases in the town had diminished significantly, but warned that residents should continue to exercise caution. Michigan Governor Albert Sleeper issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation in which he thanked God “that a dread epidemic has been stayed, through the prompt measures taken by the public health authorities throughout the State and the intelligent cooperation of the whole people.”

While isolated cases of the flu continued to be reported throughout the town--the Brock family on Woodland Avenue, for example, was sick with the flu and pneumonia--Dr. Morris was encouraged by the decline in its spread. On December 1, the ban on public gatherings--one that village officials originally thought would last just eight days--finally came to an end after 48 days. A community church service was held at the Baptist church in thanksgiving.

It is estimated that one-third of the world’s population, 500 million people, contracted the flu. Globally, some 50 million people died as a result of the illness, 675,000 of those deaths being Americans, one of them Edward Kissane of Cass City, Michigan.

The origin of the Spanish Flu is still unknown, although some scholars trace it back to Dr. Mine’s patients in Haskell County, Kansas. How such a global pandemic could begin in a rural Kansas town remains an unanswered question.

Despite more than a century of medical and technological progress, the world finds itself in a similar situation to that of 1918. Currently, no vaccine is known to prevent Covid-19, and medical and community leaders are urging the public to practice “social distancing” and good hygiene.

While we have no evidence that the Spanish Flu caused a local shortage of toilet paper or other supplies, we do know that the public was concerned. In fact, one local drug store advertised that the “Spanish Influenza Strikes Quickly-- Don’t be caught unprepared--an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
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It all goes to show that what goes around comes around.

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