Scientific Triumphalism and Learning from Facts: Bacteriology and the 'Spanish Flu' Challenge of 1918

Abstract

The devastating influenza pandemic known as 'Spanish flu', which killed at least 20 million people all over the world in 1918, was responsible for the first bitter blow inflicted on triumphant bacteriology, fortified by the series of resounding successes achieved in identifying the pathogenic agents of terrible diseases such as anthrax, cholera, tuberculosis, plague, and syphilis. Over-confidence and the idea, born of the Pasteur revolution, that every infectious disease was caused by a bacterium, had led the scientific community to accept the theory put forward by the German bacteriologist, Richard Pfeiffer, who, in 1892, believed he had identified the pathogenic influenza agent in a bacterium, Haemophilus influenzae. But, while the most appalling epidemic ever to sweep through the world since the 'Black Death' of the 1300s was still raging, the scientific community had to admit that influenza originated not from a microbe, but from a virus. This article aims to reconstruct the enlightening and little-known cultured/scientific events and issues of the dramatic crisis that bacteriology experienced in the autumn of 1918, with the consequent simultaneous collapse of both the 'Pfeiffer doctrine' on the microbial origin of influenza and the illusion of a world free of infectious diseases. This was an illusion destined to surface again at the end of the century and collapse with the advent of AIDS.

A epidemia de gripe espanhola: um desafio à medicina baiana

“…As soon as the American expeditionary forces landed on the French coast, the illness spread, attacking allies and Germans alike (Tognotti, 2003). A large portion of the army contingents and the populations of the countries embroiled in the conflict contracted the disease.…”

Zu Paläopathologie und Geschichte der Medizin

“…Andere kursierende Spekulationen waren z. B. eine Einschleppung durch Hilfstruppen der Entente aus dem Fernen Osten, ein Ursprung in den Truppenlagern der Amerikaner und sogar die künstliche Erzeugung und Verbreitung der Seuche in den Laboratorien der Deutschen [13].…”

Influenza pandemics: a historical retrospect

“…At the post-mortem table, daunted pathologists found themselves faced with swollen lungs, grossly oversize spleens, pulmonary alveoli overflowing with albuminous exudate, and necrotic tissue [12].…”

“…Intestinal complications also led doctors to believe it might be cholera or some other exotic disease. Certain forms, such as fulminating pneumonic infection with sub-cutaneous bleeding, even gave credence to the suspicion, mentioned in various medical journals, that this was an outbreak of the pneumonic plague [12] The first wave of influenza appeared early in the spring of 1918 [9]. It did not have a particularly aggressive nature.…”

“…In 1976, an H1N1 subtype caused a global alert [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] (Table 2). In January of that year, at Fort Dix, New Jersey, an Army recruit collapsed and died following a march.…”