Influenza Pandemic (1889-1890)
Estimated deaths: 1 million
The outbreak of influenza in 1889-1890 was the first pandemic to occur in a world that had become well connected due to the advent of railroad transportation and steam ships. It was commonly called the “Russian flu” because it has been traced back to an area within Russia. Researchers suspect that it may have first appeared in the steppes of Central Asia in mid-1889, but it made its first urban debut in St. Petersburg, Russia in December 1889. Within four to five months it had spread across the northern hemisphere. In the United States, deaths reached a peak in January 1890. From recent analysis, the median time between the first reported case in an area to the highest rates of mortality was about five weeks.
What made this pandemic unique was that this was the first one where the media was able to cover it widely. Newspapers across Europe published the spread of the disease in an almost up-to-the-minute fashion. In some cases, the news of the epidemic reached a given city before the arrival of the first case of influenza there. Although the reporting of the outbreak was mainly informative, the coverage did result in a kind of hysteria within the public about the disease – whether intentional or not. Of course dramatic headlines like the following published in the January 22, 1890 edition of the Polish Gazeta Polska, may not have helped: ‘Influenza, still!… It is no longer laughed at, as when it first arrived. Death strikes time after time.’
This influenza pandemic coincided with the arrival of the field of bacteriology which was heralded by the work of biologists such as Louis Pasteur. Pasteur is noted by making the connection, through his research, between germs and disease. Before then, the theories of the day focused on notions of “bad air” and “spontaneous generation” which was the idea that certain living things could generate from inanimate objects (like the notion that maggots could just arise from dead flesh). He is also credited with the method of pasteurization which is still widely used to sterilize products such as beer and milk.
