Closing in on a Killer:
Scientists Unlock Clues to the Spanish Influenza Virus
A NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE ONLINE EXHIBIT
This virtual exhibit makes widely available a 1997 temporary exhibit on the 1918 influenza pandemic and efforts by Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) pathologist Dr. Jeffrey Taubenberger to recreate the genetic structure of the 1918 influenza virus. It provides useful historical background overall and especially to news of October 2005 when Dr. Taubenberger and his team of scientists announced that they had fully reconstructed the 1918 influenza virus. Then, as during the mid-1990s, Dr. Taubenberger’s work was made possible through his use of the AFIP’s Tissue Repository, the largest and most comprehensive tissue repository in the world, which includes cases dating back to 1917 and more than 3 million medical cases overall.
Camp Jackson Base Hospital medical staff, ca. 1918.
Otis Historical Archives National Museum of Health and Medicine NCP 1310.
In 1918 an unusually deadly kind of influenza killed between 21 and 50 million people worldwide. What made this virus so deadly? Was it a completely new strain? Could it reemerge? For a long time, scientists have had more questions than answers about what has come to be known as the Spanish flu.
In 1996 there was a major a breakthrough. Dr. Taubenberger and his team of scientists at the AFIP were able recreate fragments of genetic material of an influenza virus that caused the death of a soldier in 1918. They determined that it was a distinct strain of the influenza virus.
1918: Influenza Sweeps America
The influenza pandemic of 1918 swept the United States as the country was mobilizing for World War I. More than 25 percent of the population became ill and approximately 675,000 Americans died. Unlike most flu epidemics, which tend to be dangerous for children and the elderly, the 1918 influenza was lethal primarily to people from ages 20 to 40.
On Sept 19, 1918, an Army private reported to sick call at Camp Jackson, S.C. complaining of chills, fever, coughing and headache. His doctor noted that his face was flushed and his throat was congested. His heartbeat was regular, but he had trouble breathing. The physician concluded that the serviceman had influenza.
Four days later, the serviceman developed a secondary infection of pneumonia. By that evening, his pulse was feeble, and he appeared somewhat dazed. He lingered for three more days and died on the morning of September 26. He was one of over 43,000 U.S. servicemen who died of influenza in 1918.
