ReMarx on Genealogy and History: DEATH IN THE AIR - EASTON AND THE INFLUENZA PANDEMIC OF 1918

By Rory Morgan - 2019

There’s a term in the field of public health - “Patient Zero” - that identifies the first person known to present the symptoms of a widespread illness.

On March 11, 1918, in the midst of World War 1, an Army private named Albert M. Gitchell went to the medical facility at his Kansas base and reported himself as sick. Dozens more soldiers with similar symptoms followed him that day, but since he was the first, he earned the dubious honor of being Patient Zero for the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918-1919. Gitchell recovered and lived for another fifty years; there is no record of whether he knew of his spot in medical history.

The cause of the pandemic (a pandemic is an epidemic that spreads worldwide) was an H1N1 influenza virus. It likely originated in birds, possibly passed through the pig population, and then crossed over to humans. The public generally referred to it as the Spanish flu, although Spain actually had no more to do with it than any other country.

Even though most victims recovered in time, some of those affected died within a day of becoming sick. High fever and heavy, even explosive, nosebleeds were common. Pneumonia frequently developed. Autopsies revealed unusual lung damage, which led some doctors to describe the illness as “purulent bronchitis.” Sometimes a condition known as “heliotrope cyanosis” was seen, meaning that the patient’s face turned blue. Doctors tried to understand what they were facing, but were handicapped by the fact that science knew next to nothing about viruses. They did realize that this particular influenza was especially deadly for the young, otherwise-healthy, patients who contracted it.

The visibility of the illness decreased during the spring and early summer of 1918, but then suddenly increased as autumn approached. The war had created an ideal environment for a medical disaster; thousands upon thousands of young soldiers were crowded into training camps in the US, or were jammed into troopships headed for France. They took the virus with them to Europe, where it spread to the soldiers who were already there.

Corporal Robert Bitzer of Easton had been in France since July of 1917. He had recovered from a minor combat wound, but couldn’t avoid the virus and died on October 15, 1918. Sergeant Guy Fessenden, an Easton resident, arrived in France a year after Bitzer, in July, 1918. A month later, he wrote to his mother and told her that he had a slight case of “grippe” (an old word for influenza), but that she shouldn’t worry. He was wrong; on August 20, he died in an Army hospital in Joinville, France.

Servicemen who were still in the U.S.brought the virus home with them when they visited. As they walked around town seeing their friends, they deposited the invisible H1N1 bugs wherever they went. The reverse was also true, as healthy parents and others visited soldiers at their bases and picked up the virus. Easton’s Ruth Johnson, for example, visited her husband, Ralph, at his base in Maryland. She soon became ill and returned home, in serious condition. (She survived.)

As September rolled into October, the military’s sick lists grew. Local soldiers died in their camps. They included J. Fred Arnold of McCartney Street, who died while waiting to embark for France. R. J. Swackhammer, a Lehigh Street grocer, died at Camp Lee, VA, as did Roy Sandt, employed before the war at Easton Brass and Machine. Floyd Weaver, previously a chauffeur for Easton merchant Solomon R. Bush, was another Camp Lee victim. (Weaver’s will proved to be newsworthy. It stated that he wanted only the legally-required minimum to go to his “good-for-nothing wife Katie and her aggregation, which made life a hell for me.”)

The Army’s Chief of Staff, Easton native General Peyton C. March, felt compelled to point out that every soldier who died in camp or in transit died in service of his country, just as much as one who died in combat.

At home, things were going from bad to worse. So many telephone operators were sick that Bell Telephone asked the public to limit calls to emergencies only. Some local cemeteries reported that the increased number of deaths and the sickness of laborers caused great difficulty in digging graves for funerals. There was a shortage of caskets. Fraternal organizations, which offered their members financial assistance when ill, reported that the situation was having a dire effect on their treasuries. There was discussion of converting the Armory into a temporary hospital. Industry was crippled by the number of sick workers. Hundreds upon hundreds of children were absent from school. Edith Slutter, a 30-year-old teacher, taught one day and died the next.

The community realized that person-to-person contact spread the disease. One Eastonian reportedly proposed that “There ought to be a law allowing a man to punch a person in the jaw if he coughs in your face.” Doctors and city officials hoped that a less-radical solution could be found. Working in cooperation with the state health department, the city ordered public places to be closed: the schools, the theaters, the ice cream parlors, the hotels - all went dark and silent. The Library closed. Not even religious observances were exempt as church services were cancelled.

Finally, the number of reported new cases began to drop. On October 17, there were 111;

on October 25, there were 49; on October 29, only four new cases were reported. The Express of November 1, 1918, noted that no new cases were reported - although deaths continued, for a while, among those who had become sick earlier.

The full effect of the pandemic will never be known, but there are estimates that it caused between 20 million and 50 million deaths around the world, and hundreds of deaths in the Lehigh Valley. Hopefully, our increased knowledge and improved technology will keep the next one from paralyzing our life as the last one did.