22 LISTENER MARCH 14 2020
W
hen the Spanish flu arrived
in New Zealand in Octo-
ber 1918, it struck with a
vengeance. It could be so
swift-acting that a person
could show no symptoms in the morning
and be dead by nightfall.
Within two months, 8500 people were
dead, half the number who died in the
four years of World War 1. Many of the flu
victims were young adults, some of them
soldiers who had survived the trenches of
World War 1 only to come home and suc-
cumb to the flu.
“It was short and sharp, from late
October and it had petered out by
December,” says University of Auckland
history professor Linda Bryder. “Not
only did it have that death rate, but
it is estimated that up to 90% of the
population contracted it.
“The other scary thing that is quite dif-
ferent from the current Sars coronavirus 2
and any of the others, such as [the first]
Sars, is that in 1918 the main population
group that died from it were between the
ages of 20 and 40.”The high incidence of mortality among
otherwise fit young people is thought
to be due to the way people’s immune
systems reacted to the virus, attacking it
with such ferocity that they overwhelmed
their own bodies. Most people who died
had complications, such as pneumonia. In
1918, there were no antibiotics.
Because it was so infectious, it attacked
people from all sectors of society, though
it had a higher rate among Māori, Bryder
says. “The reason for that has never really
been explained other than that perhaps
their living conditions were so much
worse.” There were 2000 Māori deaths out
of a Māori population of 51,000, so their
death rate was disproportionate, consider-
ing New Zealand’s population was a little
over a million at the time. Adding to the
fear and distress was that it left many
orphans, because the virus attacked young
adults.F
rom her studies of the 1918 epidemic,
Bryder sees similarities and differences
in reactions to today’s threat about the
Covid-19 disease.One similarity was the public’s ten-
dency to panic, she says. In 1918, health
authorities tried to keep people calm. One
initiative was to establish “precautionary
steam spray inhalation chambers”.
In Auckland, a chamber was set up in
the Chief Post Office. People would enter
and inhale a 2% solution of zinc sulphate,
which would be “atomised by means
of steam under pressure”. The aim was
to help them acquire immunity to the
virus, and though it was popular, with
1000 people a day passing through at
the height of the epidemic, there was no
evidence it worked.
The Medical Officer of Health at the time
was quoted as saying, “It was of consider-
able mental value to the nervous.” Bryder
thinks it may also, inadvertently, have
been a good way of spreading the virus.
Little bottles of medicine were also
dispensed by the Department of Health.
Bryder has been unable to find out the
medicinal components, if any, but they
had a high alcohol content. “One volun-
teer manning a particular depot had beenA amazed by the 30,000 bottles that had
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COVID19
Whether New Zealand gets an epidemic this time remains
to be seen, but in 1918, the body count left no doubt.
Short, sharp and deadly