Word: influenza
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Like so much else surrounding the storied career of Greece's best-known businessman, Onassis' illness was cloaked in mystery. After he spent a day in the Paris hospital, all his physician would say was that the patient "has been shaken by very heavy influenza...
Ever since it made its notorious globe-girdling trip in 1918, influenza has remained the most peripatetic of plagues. A 1968 epidemic afflicted more than 30 million in the U.S. alone; similar, though considerably less serious outbreaks of the disease erupted in 1972 and 1973. Now the flu is once again making the grand tour. The disease, which causes the all too familiar headache, upset stomach, coughing and fever, has struck hard in Eastern Europe and turned up in the western part of the Continent. It has also gained a foothold in the U.S., where, although...
Thus far, at least, the 1974-75 flu has claimed few lives. The U.S. Public Health Service's Center for Disease Control in Atlanta reports that a check of 121 cities reveals that influenza has caused only 578 excess deaths* so far this season, mostly from complications. This year's total is far below the 2,200 fatalities attributed to the 1972-73 outbreak. But the CDC still urges caution...
Throughout the fall of 1918 and the first months of the 1919 winter, an unidentified influenza virus killed 21 million people and affected the lives of 1 billion more, or half the world's population at that time. The bug has been credited with being more effective than the Maxim machine gun in blunting Germany's final assault on France in World War I. Practically the entire Royal Navy was kept in port for twelve days nursing more than 10,000 cases, including the Commander in Chief, His Royal Highness King George V. The flu-ridden crew...
...epidemic spread as fast as ships could carry infected passengers round the world. The highest mortality occurred in India, where 12.5 million people died. Very few places remained influenza-free because of fanatically enforced quarantine regulations. Among them were the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, Napoleon's last home, and a U.S. naval training station in San Francisco Bay, where drinking fountains were sterilized hourly with blowtorches. Nearly everywhere else life for the survivors changed radically. Moviehouses, restaurants and concert halls were ordered shut. Courting became medically dangerous. A sort of mass purdah prevailed as millions learned...