Memory is fragile, but that’s what newspaper archives are for. And the specialists who have dedicated themselves to studying the past so as not to make the same mistakes in the future. And even so, despite the efforts and knowledge shared by Juan Gestal (emeritus professor of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at USC) and Rosendo Bugarn (a doctor who is a member of the biotics council), two profound connoisseurs of the 1918 flu, humanity keeps stumbling over the same stone. A century has passed but it seems like yesterday. We thought that it would not happen again, and that we had overcome infectious diseases, with a little arrogance …, reflects Bugarn. I know better thanks to progress and science, but we have forgotten certain things and we do the same foolish things, resume.
The context
Low quality of life, too much illiteracy. Gestal highlights that the conditions contributed to the spread of the pandemic: In Madrid, in 1918, only 49% of the municipalities had potable water, which was also scarce and unhealthy. There was no sewage in 70%. And the illiteracy rate was around 55%. Bugarn adds: There was no fake newsBut there were myths and unfounded beliefs that spread false fears.
The waves
The wintry, more deadly. Gestal points out that the first wave of spring 1918 was followed by that of autumn-winter, but it is not known whether it was the same virus. What is certain is that it was the deadliest, and coincides with the return of the military and the festivities after the peace of November 11. And in February and March 1919 the third wave arrived, worse than the first, but not as much as the second. In 1918, Madrid received the first impact, but the later ones affected the north. Ourense, A Corua, Lugo, the Basque Country … Bugarn believes that this pandemic will last longer because the flu arrived with a residual mortality in May, something that will not happen with the covid, unless the vaccine has an immediate effect on evolution. Bugarn emphasizes that the flu of the 18 had more impact on the barracks and the covid, on the residences. It attacked the younger population and affected life expectancy. Perhaps then older people were more protected from another previous flu. Many doctors died, he argues.
The treatments
Hit and miss, but without ucis, or assisted breathing, and with a non-universal hospital system. In both cases, public health (in 1918 there was no universal social security) was overwhelmed. They used aspirin, quinine (responsible for the alteration of color in patients, who said they would wake up in a pale world), arsenic preparations, camphor … the pharmacopoeia was scarce and very bad, Gestal emphasizes. They die of bacterial pneumonia, after passing the flu. Not only was there no treatment but it was thought to be caused by bacteria, he adds. Bugarn compares: Like now, they hit each other in the blind. Treatments were proposed and tested. People stayed at home, especially the wealthy, did not go to the hospital because the system was closely linked to charity. It had to be paid and people with few resources could not, he explains.
Authorities and measures
They minimized gravity and made decisions facing the galley. Many restrictions are similar, such as forbidding handshakes or kisses, wearing masks, controlling sputum, avoiding confined atmospheres in taverns and the like, and restrictions on burials. The incubation period of influenza is shorter than that of covid, but the difference is the number of asymptomatic, an added problem in the current pandemic, analyzes Gestal. Bugarn qualifies: The poor evolution of coronaviruses is predictable and that favors telephone attention and gives room for transferring the patient to the hospital. With the flu that does not happen, not only because of the technological resource, but because it was explosive in a matter of hours. Also then schools and universities were closed. At the beginning of the covid pandemic, this fact in Madrid made the students adopt the role that the military had in 1918 in terms of transmission to their places of origin, Gestal points out, while Bugarn recovers an anecdote: Same as now , held public shows, such as bullfights, but facing the galley, they disinfected the horns of the bulls wanting to show that they were safe in terms of contagion. The citizen protested and asked for more hygiene measures. Xenophobia was also generated.
