The Spanish Flu – A Grisly Death Indeed

Historyzine: The History Podcast

For this episode of the podcast I wanted to try and get a feel for the actual experience of suffering the disease. I wanted to know what Spanish Flu was like on a personal level.

To accomplish this I needed to uncover contemporary accounts from the time, that gave details of the damage inflicted and the distress caused by the influenza.

I was surprised to find relatively few of these accounts but I did find one that had everything that I required. It is fictional but is written by someone who had suffered and survived a severe bout of Spanish Flu in 1918.

This is the story, Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter. It is beautifully written and heart rendingly tragic. It concerns a newspaper woman Miranda and a soldier, Adam. It is an incredibly detailed account of the symptoms and, in particular the delirium and confusion of the experience

This podcast also draws upon information in the article, “It’s as Bad as Anything Can Be”: Patients, Identity, and the Influenza Pandemic by Dr Nancy K Bristow https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00333549101250S316