The Spanish Flu: Lessons

Then & Now: Philosophy, History & Politics

I look at the history of the Spanish Flu of 1918 - the worst pandemic in history - asking what lessons we can learn. Avoiding a traditional approach to the story, I look at history’s worst pandemic from a number of perspectives. As a preface, I think about the memory of the flu and remembrance of World War One – why was the Influenza forgotten, while the war memorialised by poets like John McCrae? Then, institutional, looking at the two main institutions involves in the response: the military and the bacteriologists. Then, material, looking at the ways it spread and how quarantines were attempted to stop it. Third, ideologically, how did ideas of the time distort the response. I look in particular at cinemas, religion in Africa, and apartheid.Ultimately, there is a theme that runs through memories of the Spanish Flu: Failure.The historian Niall Johnson sums up Britains failure like this:‘the perception of disease, the fact that it was ‘only’ influenza, the relatively mild nature of the first wave in the spring of 1918, Imperialist or racist views and the ‘superiority’ of the English, the confidence in scientific medicine to find a vaccine, the quest for professional status of the profession, the power of ‘scientific’ medicine prevailing over preventive, and the rejection of state intervention. Many of these contributed to a delay in the reaction and recognition of the existence of a problem, particularly when the second wave arrived in the autumn of 1918.’Then & Now is FAN-FUNDED! Support me on Patreon and pledge as little as $1 per video: http://patreon.com/user?u=3517018

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