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Sickness, Death and Fear: The Spanish Flu

Decent Essays

Sickness. Death. Fear. All of these horrifying components played a part in the Spanish flu. The Spanish flu spread throughout the world in 1918 and devastated the United States. This flu came in three waves and affected the people of this world even more. Its name was known as the Spanish flu because of the major impact it did on the people of Spain. The people were not aware or prepared when the flu hit them which made everyone even more afraid of it. First of all, the cause of the Spanish flu had many theories to it. One of the theories was that people thought the flu was spread by the Germans. They thought it was one of the Germans’ tools of biological warfare. Biological warfare is when biological toxins are used on people or animals to kill them as an act of war. Since World War I ended in 1918 and the Spanish flu began in 1918 it was a reasonable theory for people to come up with. Also, the fact that Germany had used biological warfare on cattle, on the eastern and western frontier during World War I was a fair reason to think the flu was set off by the Germans. Another theory was that the Spanish flu was a result of trench warfare. This type of warfare was when soldiers would fight from inside a trench. The trenches were used as a sort of shield. Trench warfare used mustard gasses which killed people by affecting the lungs. This was a fair theory because the Spanish flu affected the lungs too and maybe it was leftover from the mustard

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