A hundred years ago, I’m guessing a few Iolans had threatened among themselves to tar and feather Dr. J.S. Sutcliffe, the Allen County Health Officer, who had the authority to determine how long the county would remain in lockdown to ward off the Spanish flu.
Just as the numbers would appear to ebb, they’d spike up again. Nine cases one day, 50 the next, forcing Dr. Sutcliffe to be the bad guy as the stubborn virus held on week after week.
Dr. Sutcliffe was not only battling a virulent bug, but also a U.S. Government that had a war to fight. The last thing Uncle Sam wanted was a dispirited country.
So instead of recognizing the danger of this virulent influenza and warning people of protective measures, the government began churning out “everything’s fine” propaganda. And U.S. newspapers were complicit. Including my great-grandfather, Charles F. Scott during his days as publisher of the Register.
WHEN I learned of the conspiracy, I took to the microfilm to see for myself. September of 1918 was the beginning of the deadliest three-month period of the epidemic, which lasted two years.
Sure enough, on the front page of the Sept. 26, 1918 issue the deadly influenza is referred to as the “Spanish Sneeze.”
Perhaps feeling pressured to maintain wartime morale, the Register ran “infomercials” saying “This is ordinary influenza by another name.”
This is ordinary influenza by another name … nothing less than the old ‘La Grippe.’
A fluff piece quoted an Iola physician characterizing the Spanish influenza as “nothing less than the old ‘La Grippe,’ in its original virulent form. It … was to us a new disease that swept over the country, in the form of a violent cold. … Later it settled down and made itself at home among us and we became accustomed to it and talked of having ‘the grip’ just as we talked of having a cold….The truth is that in itself it is not a particularly dangerous malady … and runs its course in a few days. The danger is not from the disease itself as from its after-effects [which] leaves a patient peculiarly susceptible to pneumonia and with his powers of resistance greatly weakened.”
Other “articles” in the Register would begin innocently enough, citing federal reports and statistics before they would begin their spiels. “If you find yourself tired, weak and losing flesh, or if you are in a generally run-down condition, or if you catch cold easily …. Then you are in great danger, because the germ of this disease is very catching and you are apt to fall an easy victim.
“If you are in a sub-normal condition the proper thing to do is to begin immediately to up your powers of resistance.
“To accomplish this it has been demonstrated that nothing on earth will strengthen you and build you up like Tanlac, the powerful reconstructive tonic that gives you fighting strength to ward off the influenza germ.” In truth, Tanlac was nothing more than a 36 proof mixture of wine, glycerin and bitter herbs.
BY MID-SUMMER 1918, the virus had spread to scores of basic training camps across the country. Paradoxically, the bug affected those in the prime of their lives, hitting hard and fast.
Close quarters and a cavalier attitude regarding recommended health protocols helped spread the virus among the soldiers here and then across the Atlantic.
American combat deaths in World War I totaled 53,402. Of those 45,000 were from the Spanish flu.
