THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Just as the slaughter of The Great War was winding down, having killed approximately 20 Million people, the Spanish flu struck. Over a very short period of time it killed more than twice as many people as the war with a speed that astonished the medical community.

The flu arrived as a great war raged in Europe, a conflict that would leave about 20 million people dead over four years.

In 1918, the flu would kill more than twice that number — and perhaps five times as many — in just 15 months. Though mostly forgotten, it has been called “the greatest medical holocaust in history.”

Experts believe between 50 and 100 million people were killed. More than two-thirds of them died in a single 10-week period in the autumn of 1918.

Never have so many died so swiftly from a single disease. In the United States alone, it killed about 675,000 in about a year — the same number who have died of AIDS in nearly 40 years.

As the country muddles through a particularly nasty flu season — one that the Centers for Disease Control says has killed 24 children in the first three weeks of January and 37 since the start of the flu season — the 1918 nightmare serves a reminder. If a virulent enough strain were to emerge again, a century of modern medicine might not save millions from dying.

One hundred years ago, a third of the world’s population came down with what was dubbed the Spanish flu. (It got its name when the king of Spain, Alfonso XIII, his prime minister and several cabinet ministers came down with the disease.)

The flu brought life to a standstill, emptying city streets, closing churches, pool halls, saloons and theaters. Coffin makers couldn’t keep up with demand, so mass graves were dug to bury the dead. People cowered behind closed doors for fear they would be struck down.

In Philadelphia, news stories described priests driving carts through the streets, encouraging people to bring out the dead so that they might be buried.

In New York there were accounts of people feeling perfectly healthy when they boarded the subway in Coney Island and being taken off dead when they reached Columbus Circle.

Entire families succumbed.

In Tyler County, West Virginia, John Linza, his wife and two of their sons died on the same day. Two other sons died just days before them. The last Linza, an infant, died the day after his parents.

In the southwestern tip of Virginia, J.W. Trent, his wife and two sons fell ill. They were preceded in death by all four of their young daughters — Hattie, Mary, Ellen and Ruby.

In 10 weeks, the flu killed 20,000 in New York City and produced 31,000 orphans.

My father lived through the flu epidemic and service in World War II and he always said the flu was much more frightening than combat because the Army gave you a gun and taught you how to fight back. There was nothing to be done about the flu. And even now with modern medicine we might not be able to do much against a similarly virulent strain of flu.