Pandemic news, then and now

As we went through one Covid-19 wave after another, the need to know more about a similar infection that ravaged the world 100 years ago grew stronger. One of the well-known libraries in New Delhi tried to look for newspapers dating back to the summer of 1918, when the flu had surfaced in India, but found the relevant bunch missing. After some more disappointing searching, it was at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library that a window opened up into the past. The projector screen lit up with faded headlines and reports from newspapers restored as microfilm. The microfilm reading machines, lined up in a dark room on the first floor of the library where you could barely see one another, gave an authentic sense of how the flu started, what the symptoms were, what was the advisory then, how it was reported in the newspapers and more.

At first, pages and dates rolled on lazily without a mention of the pandemic. Then, there was a small news item in one of the inside pages of Amrita Bazar Patrika dated July 11, 1918. (Amrita Bazar Patrika was incidentally among the few newspapers the library had restored for the relevant dates during the Spanish Flu.) The headline, insignificantly displayed, read: “Advent of a mysterious disease in Calcutta”. The symptoms of the disease were listed as headache, listlessness, loss of energy and complete loss of appetite accompanied by fever. ‘’The headache is stated not to be the ordinary headache of everyday life but it is as if the poison toxin is slowly creeping on…’’ The article said the infection was attacking people in government offices and banks and that it first surfaced a fortnight ago.

As for Bombay, this “epidemic’’ had seriously disorganised work in the city. “Post office, telegraph department, offices, banks, mills have been seriously affected due to shortage of hands,’’ the newspaper said, in a striking similarity to what we have witnessed in the last two years. In the early days, the authorities had failed to assess the seriousness of the disease. “That the disease is not dangerous, if taken in hand at once, is evidenced by the fact that of the thousands of cases which occurred in Bombay last month, only seven deaths are directly attributed to this mysterious disease,’’ a July 1918 report said based on health bulletins.

As summer turned into fall, on October 24, 1918, the newspaper in a report “Influenza in Bombay” detailed the epidemic in more fearful terms: “Influenza is raging with fearful virulence through the villages…. People residing in big cities and towns have been taken aback at the increased mortalities and all attempts are being made to minimise the devastating impact of the fell disease…. Condition in rural areas is horrible—average death rate in villages is 10 to 20 times the rate in towns.’’ That was perhaps the second wave of the Influenza, also known as the War Fever or the Spanish Flu.

Besides news, advertisements also captured the times. The Pioneer, while it reported the Influenza outbreak datelined Simla during sanitary commissioner Norman White’s tour in October 1918, advertisements of gargles and tonics found pride of place in the newspaper. Iglodine was one such gargle with prominent ads. “Influenza can be prevented with this gargle… Use it daily, use it often, use it liberally’’. This carried on through 1919—“Iglodine is invaluable, no household should be without it’’.

While the deadly flu was first detected in India sometime in June 1918, it was only in October that year that the sanitary commissioner issued a formal notification declaring a pandemic, an Influenza similar to that of 1690. According to the note, “there’s no information to explain why this disease, which is rarely completely absent, should from time to time assumes the form of such violent outbreaks as the one we are at present experiencing in India.’’ The note pointed out that European researchers were giving due attention to this subject and that investigators are at work in India as well.

Even as there were no dashboards on the number of cases or any scientific number crunching on the number of dead, the advisories were the same as they are today. The rules to be followed then: Avoid unnecessary exposure and fatigue; do not travel in over-crowded tram-cars; don’t visit over-crowded public places; don’t neglect apparently trifling symptoms of ill health; the first case in a house should be isolated, sputum disinfected and handkerchief boiled; sleep with doors and windows open.

There were no screaming front page headlines in Indian newspapers on the flu, though inside pages gave news on the estimated damage and lockdowns. A Cawnpore-datelined report of October 1918, for instance, spoke of 400 deaths daily in the city. “Schools, colleges have been closed. All prominent doctors infected. Cantonment authorities are running a motor car fitted up as a travelling dispensary which visits everyone who is sick,’’ it said.  

Although there was no Twitter trend to establish it, Influenza was a top subject of discussion in most parts of the world, newspapers reported. An international despatch in The Pioneer noted that people in Sydney were not at all pleased with the mandatory mask rule and were upset that cinemas theatres and restaurants were shut down. Sounds familiar?