It was 96 years ago that the Spanish Flu struck the United States.
With a headline of "The Influenza," an item on the front page of the Dec. 5, 1918, California Democrat, said, "The "flu' is evidently taking a fresh start in Moniteau county - new cases are developing on the farms in the country - several deaths reported at Fortuna and vicinity, not a town or village in the county free from the disease."
Also on the front page was a notice from the City of California "Flu Precautions Necessary" which began with, "On account of the prevalence of Influenza in our community, the Board of Health of the City of California deems it advisable to issue the following order."
The order? No adults or children were to congregate on the streets or in any store, restaurant or "pool room" for any longer than necessary, with the proprietors required to enforce the order. Those from any home where the influenza existed "must not" attend school or go to work.
"If the public health can be protected by observing the above, more stringent regulations will be unnecessary," the order said. It additionally instructed people to stay off the streets and out of stores and restaurants except when strictly necessary and to help enforce the order. Physicians were required to report all cases they knew about.
The Dec. 12 issue of the newspaper contained a U.S. Health Service warning. U.S. Surgeon General Rupert Blue of the Public Health Service said, "The present epidemic has taught by bitter experience how readily a condition beginning apparently as a slight cold may go on to pneumonia and death."
A few pages later, a headline reads, "Red Cross Fights Deadly Epidemic".
The Dec. 26 issue of the paper announced that, due to the success of the earlier measures, people were once more permitted to go to church and school starting on Jan. 6. In the Jamestown items on the last page same issue of the Democrat, is a single sentence, stating, "The "flu' is subsiding in and around Jamestown."
All of the newspaper items mentioned have to do with the third round of the Spanish Flu. The first round of the influenza outbreak, which began in March of 1918, does not appear to have been mentioned by name. But the results of sickness and death among Moniteau County residents, many of them soldiers, certainly can be seen in newspaper items.
The United States illnesses were first noted March 11, 1918, at Fort Riley, Kan., among soldiers. But the new influenza quickly spread. In five weeks, more than 1,000 were infected, with almost 50 deaths resulting. It soon spread to other military posts and to troop transport ships.
It is not an easy task to determine where the flu originated, or even who might have had it first. The government censors kept it from being reported in the countries involved in World War I. So, because of politics, the new strain of influenza became known for the first country to be hit hard by the flu, while not being involved in the war, and not censoring its public health reports - Spain.
It spread fast, but the first wave had mostly died out by July. The second wave, just as contagious, but with a more deadly mutation which killed in hours or a few days of the first symptoms, struck in August. That one, too, died out. The unusual thing about this flu is that the victims were predominantly young and healthy people 20 to 35 years old.
The Armistice ending World War I on Nov. 11, 1918, and sending the soldiers home, is thought to have begun the third wave, which caused California to be basically shut down by the city health department. That third wave apparently ran its course by 1920.
Altogether, the so-called Spanish Flu ran its course from January 1918 to December 1920. It infected a half billion people, killing anywhere from 50 to 100 million of them. That was possibly five percent of the world's population at the time.
It is estimated that up to 675,000 Americans died of the disease or its after-effects. Turning the pages of the California Democrat from 1918 and 1919 shows that Moniteau County was not spared, losing many of its citizens during the prime of life.