The 1918 Spanish flu epidemic in Russia

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Approximately 100 years ago, the world experienced an epidemic of influenza, which is popularly called "Spanish flu". In 1918, he was able to penetrate into the territory of Russia. Compared to how many died in the world, it could be said that our country did not suffer that much. How was this later explained?

Not the best time for a pandemic

The citizens of a large country were going through difficult times. Not only was the medical system in decline due to the civil war and subsequent events, people were starving, and epidemics emerged one after another. The population suffered from typhus, then from smallpox, malaria.

When the pandemic began to subside, it became clear that in Russia the infection manifested itself in a completely different way than in other countries. A notable feature of the Spanish flu was that it spread unevenly.

Detailed figures

To better understand the mechanism of the spread of the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918 in Russia, it is necessary to determine how many people became infected and how many died from this flu in the country as a whole and in its individual regions.

The Vladimir province became a kind of record holder for the number of cases. In the period from 1918 to 1919. here it was recorded about 90,000 infected. The five leaders according to these testimonies also included the Vyatka, Smolensk, Tambov and Oryol provinces.

The Spanish woman practically failed to penetrate into the Moscow province. In total, 30,000 cases of infection were officially recorded in the capital and the surrounding area. If we take into account the population as a whole, an indicator is formed: less than 10 cases for every thousand Russians. In the provinces, which were among the most problematic, this ratio was 3-5 times higher.

A relatively low number of cases was noted in Petrograd. Over the entire winter, no more than 3, 5 thousand people were infected here. It was one of the lowest in the entire country.

Another place in the country practically untouched by the disease was the Olonets province. True, there was a serious shortage of doctors and medical centers. And therefore, it is possible that there was simply no one to record most of the cases in the statistics.

Some sources report allegedly 3 million deaths from the "Spanish flu" in Russia. However, these figures are overestimated and unreliable.

During the epidemic, according to the People's Commissariat of Health, no more than a million infected were found throughout the territory controlled by the Bolsheviks. In percentage terms, this is no more than 2% of the country's population. If we imagine that even 2/3 of the cases were not recorded in the statistics, the total number of patients would hardly exceed the threshold of 6% of the population.

And yet this is strange, considering that Russia during the period under review suffered from war, hunger, and various epidemics. In prosperous states, where the standard of living was good, as well as medical care, the situation was completely different.

Interesting! Symptoms of a mild form of coronavirus

Infrastructure destruction

This will seem paradoxical, but it was the collapse of medicine provoked by the war that could have a positive effect on the indicators recorded in Russia. If in Western countries, those infected were instantly taken to hospitals and hospitals, then in Russia it was problematic to get to a medical institution. In the USA and Europe, patients contacted patients from other wards, medical workers, infecting them.

In Russia, due to the war and devastation, there were not enough doctors. Accordingly, the patients stayed at home, instead of going to see a doctor. Their state of health did not particularly suffer from this, because the "Spanish flu" was not treated in a special way, even in a hospital.

But such a feature could prevent the infection from spreading further. On the other hand, such an explanation will stop untenable if we take into account that in other countries with a low indicator of medicine, the number of cases was still higher.

It's about genetics

The Spaniard had many interesting features. For example, the fact that depending on a particular country, the mortality rate varied significantly. The Slavic population of Russia carried the deadly disease mainly like a common flu, while in the Buryat settlements there was a high mortality rate.

Scientists are still trying to explain this feature by genetic differences, but today there is not a single objective theory on this matter.

Mutations

Another version is that the full-scale penetration of the Spanish flu into Russia occurred at a stage when the virus mutated and did not contribute to high mortality. The first wave simply did not reach our country.

The second began, but with a slight delay. If the peak of the pandemic all over the world fell on October 1918, then at that time the first patients were just beginning to appear in Russia.

How we won

Ultimately, the moment came when the flu epidemic that penetrated our country in 1918 finally receded. The whole world was counting losses, analyzing how many people died. In particular, many were interested in the question of how Russia managed to achieve victory over the "Spanish flu".

The country used various methods of fighting infection. The peasants, who did not have access to either expensive medicines or hospitals, preferred baths and vodka.

Those who had enough money for medicines drank aspirin as an antipyretic. Someone rubbed in an ointment with ichthyol or gray mercury, someone made a compress. In other cases, the measures were standard and consisted of adherence to bed rest, diaphoretic treatment.

Be that as it may, the infection as it came from nowhere, and disappeared completely unexpectedly. So to say what exactly contributed to the victory over this type of flu is definitely impossible.

Summarize

1. In Russia, the spread of the Spanish flu followed a milder scenario than in other countries of the world.
2. In the period from 1918 to 1919, 90,000 infected were recorded in the RSFSR.
3. "Spanish flu" in Russia appeared unexpectedly and just as suddenly disappeared after several waves of epidemics.