Untimely reading

[ladyofastolat]

A few weeks ago, I read a very interesting book about the 1918 flu pandemic. At about the same time, I also read one about the Black Death, and did quite a lot of online reading about cholera epidemics, typhus on battlefields, and malaria in Britain.

I'm kind of wishing I hadn't done so now.

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Penicillin only works against bacteria, doesn't it, but, yes, we have much better medical care and drugs. The information thing is interesting, too. Partly because of war-time reporting restrictions, most newspapers in 1918 barely mentioned the flu, so sometimes people who were feeling awful just carried on with their lives, going out and infecting people, not realising that there was a deadly pandemic happening.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I understand that it is not usually the 'flu' itself that kills you but the secondary (and tertiary) infections, and those are often bacterial. So penicillin should be a significant help.