Morbid Fact Du Jour For April 9, 2011
Today’s Contagious Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
The 1918 Influenza epidemic killed at least 20 million, and possibly more than 100 million, people worldwide but the true number can never be known. Many places that were bludgeoned by the flu did not keep mortality statistics, and even in countries such as the United States, efforts at tabulating flu deaths were complicated by the fact that there was no definitive test in those days to show that a person actually had the flu. But still, the low end of the mortality estimates is stunning. In comparison, AIDS had killed 11.7 million people through 1997. World War I was responsible for 9.2 million combat deaths and around 15 million total deaths. World War II for 15.9 million combat deaths. Historian Alfred W. Crosby remarks that whatever the exact number felled by the 1918 flu, one thing is indisputable: the virus “killed more humans than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.”
Culled from: Flu : The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic
Ive read this book, fascinating stuff!