4 ms·

The sad thing is, one of the worst pandemics in human history is fairly recent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19

by jmadsen 13y ago

The sad thing is, one of the worst pandemics in human history is fairly recent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic There are (a few) people alive today who remember it. It killed between 1.5 and 3 times as many people as the earlier WWI - but isn't as sexy as war, so hardly anyone studies it (relatively speaking)

dhughes 13y ago
Killing about 5% of the entire population of the world about 100 million people, just imagine now with seven billion if a flu outbreak killed 350 million people. Even people on remote islands in the middle of oceans died from the flu.
- aestra 13y ago
  That's amazing, that's more than the population of the United States.
- pyre 13y ago
  > Even people on remote islands in the middle of oceans died from the flu. Without contact from the outside world?
  - dhughes 13y ago
    It was avian based influenza, birds spread it to remote areas of the world.
wusher 13y ago
Also, the pandemic was made worse due to over medicating the sick http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.ht...
- ejstronge 13y ago
  I hadn't heard about this so I looked up the primary reference[1]. I'm not sure that high aspirin regimens (the overmedication you're referring to) would explain the high mortality of the flu outside the U.S. Further, the author of the study cautions that this is a correlation that could be important given our changed understanding of aspirin toxicity and not a proven finding. [1] http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/9/1405 http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/9/1405
jlgreco 13y ago
Hell, it killed around as many people as WWII, including the Holocaust (wikipedia estimates for WWII being >60million, and estimates for the Spanish flu being 50-100million.) Numbers that big become very difficult to actually fathom in a meaningful way.
- Buttons840 13y ago
  That's about a 1/4th the US population. Wow!

by jmadsen 13y ago

dhughes 13y ago

Killing about 5% of the entire population of the world about 100 million people, just imagine now with seven billion if a flu outbreak killed 350 million people. Even people on remote islands in the middle of oceans died from the flu.

aestra 13y ago
That's amazing, that's more than the population of the United States.
pyre 13y ago
> Even people on remote islands in the middle of oceans died from the flu. Without contact from the outside world?
- dhughes 13y ago
  It was avian based influenza, birds spread it to remote areas of the world.

wusher 13y ago

Also, the pandemic was made worse due to over medicating the sick http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.ht...

ejstronge 13y ago
I hadn't heard about this so I looked up the primary reference[1]. I'm not sure that high aspirin regimens (the overmedication you're referring to) would explain the high mortality of the flu outside the U.S. Further, the author of the study cautions that this is a correlation that could be important given our changed understanding of aspirin toxicity and not a proven finding. [1] http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/9/1405 http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/49/9/1405

jlgreco 13y ago

Hell, it killed around as many people as WWII, including the Holocaust (wikipedia estimates for WWII being >60million, and estimates for the Spanish flu being 50-100million.) Numbers that big become very difficult to actually fathom in a meaningful way.

Buttons840 13y ago
That's about a 1/4th the US population. Wow!