Mask In Spanish Flu
It infected an estimated 500 million people about one third of the world s population and killed an estimated 50.
Mask in spanish flu. Surgical masks were made of gauze and many people s flu masks were made of gauze too. Masks were widely accepted as the best shot at curbing the virus while a small but not insignificant number pushed back against the rules arguing they were free to keep their faces bare. But shortly after the mask bonfires the spanish flu reignited and cases climbed again. A woman wears a flu mask during the spanish flu epidemic it is dangerous to draw too many parallels between coronavirus and the 1918 spanish flu pandemic that killed at least 50 million people.
July 24 2020 at 9 13 am. This was not simply a question of mask or no mask but of design construction supply and use. Like today as governments around the world try to contain the spread of covid 19 american citizens were asked to wear face masks in order to reduce the spread of the illness. During the spread of the bubonic plague doctors wore a beak shaped mask filled with perfume.
As the spanish flu swept through the us in 1918 and 1919 face masks became ubiquitous to help in preventing the spread of the disease much as they have today during the coronavirus pandemic. San francisco reinstituted its mask rules in january 1919 triggering a rebellion that resulted in the. The spanish fluwas a lethal virus in 1918 9 that is estimated to have infected a third of the world s population and left upwards of 50 million dead. The wearer needed to use a well designed mask properly and change masks frequently.
The worst influenza pandemic in history was the spanish flu of 1918 1919. An american policeman wearing a flu mask to protect himself from the outbreak of spanish flu following world war i.