Showing results by author "Oscar Jewell Harvey" in All Categories

Pandemics have afflicted human civilizations throughout history, yet these health crises have also led to progress in medicine and society that improved people’s lives. History shows that scientific innovation often proceeds from the collaboration of researchers across disciplines, nations, and institutions.

Oscar J. Harvey (1850-1922) was a renowned historian of Wilkes-Barre and Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley, and held the positions of professor of mathematics and English at Wyoming Seminary. This is his account of the ravages of the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918 in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and the efforts made to combat and overcome it. 

The 1918 to 1919 H1N1 influenza pandemic is among the most deadly events in recorded human history, having killed an estimated 50 to 100 million persons. Recent H5N1 avian influenza epizootics associated with sporadic human fatalities have heightened concern that a new influenza pandemic, one at least as lethal as that of 1918, could be developing.

Early in September, 1918, the United States was invaded by a scourge of highly infectious and fatal disease, which spread with rapidity throughout the country, eventually infecting 500 million people worldwide, or about 27 percent of the world population, killing anywhere from 17 million to as many as 100 million, making it one of the deadliest epidemics in human history. Known as Spanish Influenza, it was pandemic in its nature. No one seemed to know much about the disease or its treatment, and medical science and public health agencies were alike unprepared to cope with it.