By: Robert Fidler

If you think that you have never heard of the disease “Influenza”, you’re wrong.  You know this disease by one of the most simple names, the flu.  This is at the same time, the most well known and understood disease and one of the most mysterious.  This disease is a virus not a bacterium, it can be carried by birds, mammals, and humans alike.  It is highly contagious and can be transferred through the air.  It is a strain of viruses that are RNA based of the family Orthomyxoviridae.  It is often confused with the common cold because they share many characteristics such as sneezing, temperature, and a stuffy nose. But Influenza is far more severe than the common cold with some strains of the disease being quite deadly.  

If you catch Influenza there many symptoms that can appear, these are very similar to the common cold, this makes distinguishing the diseases very hard.  Some of the most common symptoms are fever and extreme coldness often switching between the two.  You may develop coughing, nasal congestion, runny nose, sneezing, body aches, fatigue, and headaches.  These are some of the early symptoms and not that severe.  As the disease progresses more symptoms can appear these can include.  Irritated, watery eyes, reddened eyes, skin, mouth, throat, and nose.  And the later symptoms can go so far as to, petechial rash and in children intestinal symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pains.  Since these symptoms are so similar to those of a cold, you’ll want to be especially careful when experiencing these symptoms as you may have Influenza or just a common cold.

Since Influenza was the scourge of the world medicine has advanced considerably.  Before the development of the microscope no one knew what in the world caused these diseases.  They thought that they were the scourge of God and punishment for their sins.  When they saw that there was these tiny organisms that made people sick they thought that they had found their culprit.  But they were wrong, viruses are much, much smaller than bacteria and you can’t cure something when you have the wrong thing.  Eventually the electronic microscope was developed and our field of view was expanded even further.  Now we saw these tiny, tiny little things that could cause some of the worst diseases ever.  Now with today’s technology we have the ability to fight this disease.

Now since the technology has allowed us to fight this disease we have developed ways to prevent the sickness.  Many vaccines have been developed to prevent you from getting this disease in the first place.  If you think that once you have a vaccine your good for ever then your wrong.  This disease has an extremely high mutation rate, this means that even though the vaccine works now.  A new strain might evolve a few years later.  This is why you have to get a vaccine every few years.  Now there are some medicines out there that are used for treatment of this disease.  Antivirals have been developed to specially treat Influenza, these are neuraminidase inhibitors such as oseltamivir and zahamirir are specially designed to fight Influenza.

The term “Influenza” came from an Italian word meaning “influence”,  while the name came from Italy the first documented cases of Influenza came from ancient Greece.  These symptoms were first described in patients around 2,400 year ago.  The first convincing epidemic was in 1580 which began in Russia and spread to Europe via Africa.  After this first epidemic later smaller epidemics occurred sporadically throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.  This disease was also brought to the Americas in the same way that smallpox was brought over, by european explorers.  As the disease was introduced it decimated the local population, it killed almost the entire population of The Antilles.  The most famous outbreak of influenza was in 1918 with the Spanish Flu epidemic.

The Spanish Flu epidemic is most noted in the United States, where it was most severe.  

In 1918 when soldiers went over to Europe to fight they brought the flu with them and as they returned it had changed becoming even more deadly.  As the soldiers returned home they started dying all over the country, and slowly it spread to the general population.  The disease worked it’s way steadily across the U.S.  This particular strain baffled scientists because it killed the most physically fit, this was the complete opposite of was normal Influenza should do.  It ravaged the country in the middle of the great war effort, this strain from outside and inward forces nearly caused the country to collapse under the strain.  It ravaged through the U.S. from 1918 to 1919, two long and deadly years of terror.  The U.S. was not alone in suffering, the entire world felt the effects of Influenza in the year 1918.  Though not as severe as in the U.S. the disease kill somewhere around 50 million people, more deaths than that of WWI.  In the U.S. the death toll was around 25% of the nation’s population at the time.  For records in 1918 Influenza killed 25 million in it’s first 25 weeks while AIDS killed it’s first 25 million in it’s first 25 years!

Now this particular disease has had fairly large impact on history.  Though it may not be as famous as the “Black Death”  it still has had epidemics of it’s own.  it first created a plague in Russia and Europe where it killed ¼ of all people exposed to the disease.  Earlier when the Europeans first landed on America, it wiped out whole populations along with other diseases.  And most famously of all it caused the Spanish Flu Plague in 1918 where it killed nearly 50 million people worldwide!  Now there are still some people that have helped cured this disease.  First in the year 1935 the Influenza virus was discovered by Wendell Stanley.  After that significant steps to find a cure for the disease, later Frank MacFarlane Burnd showed that the virus lost it’s virulence when cultured inside hen’s eggs.  In 1966 researchers at the University of Michigan backed by the U.S. Army developed a cure.

Another notable thing about Influenza is that it was the first disease used in biological warfare.  it was first used by european explorers when they landed in america and met with natives.  The disease spread to the natives and killed them since they had never been exposed to the disease, it killed nearly 90% of the native population.  Another big event in it’s history was in 1918 where soldiers in the first world war tried to spread the disease to the enemy.  In the U.S. the disease hit hard almost ending America’s involvement in the war.

Influenza is a truly amazing disease among other things it has one of the highest mutation rates.  It is one of the most well known diseases in the world, and was the first disease used in biological warfare.  And in history it was one of the biggest reasons that allowed europeans to be able to colonize america.  Influenza can be just a little case of the flu or it can become one of the largest and deadliest plagues in human history.  It is a truly versatile little disease causing thing, it is a very interesting and scary subject to study.  Even though you may think of it as just a little case of the flu but lurking underneath could be the deadliest disease in history.