ONE hundred and four years ago, in January 1919, Thomas Burberry left his house in Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke, to walk into town to open up his clothing factory in Hackwood Road.
As he strolled along he looked for his neighbours, who were usually heading for the shops in Winchester Street and London Street, but there were none about.
“Strange,” he thought, “where is everyone?” Upon arriving at his factory he was greeted by only half his women workers. The reason was quickly explained to him.
“It’s the influenza epidemic, Mr Burberry, and the Christmas period has seen it arrive in the town.”
It was common knowledge that this particular strain of influenza was very strong and it brought on the effects of pneumonia, which was often fatal, and the news that a prisoner of war camp in Hampshire had been hit some months before, with some 1,000 of them being struck down, did not help matters.
Some days later, Mr Burberry heard that other places in Basingstoke and the nearby villages had also been affected by the influenza virus, including the local schools, and at the cottage hospital those who were severely affected were having to be put in temporary beds, for the building was designed to hold only 27 beds, and this was in a town of some 12,000 people.
The matron, Miss R Humphreys, and the town’s medical officer of health, William Rees-Thomas, were worried about the situation as the victims grew in number, so the Hackwood Road hospital put out a plea for help, and the Basing Road Hospital took in as many patients as possible.
Due to this situation the cottage hospital was enlarged at a cost of some £1,500 in 1920.
It was Thomas Willis (1621-73), the English physician, who wrote in his notes that “at the end of April 1658 a distemper arose as if sent by some blast of the starts...that in some towns in the space of a week above a thousand people fell sick together”.
The name of influenza was taken from the basis that the disease was “influenced” by the heavenly bodies, in the mid-18th century.
Many people believed that germs from outer space were landing on our Earth and infecting human beings.
There was a series of influenza epidemics during the 19th century, when many people died, and this led Richard Pfeiffer (1858-1945), the German bacteriologist, to study the subject of infection from the influenza baccillus, which caused the disease.
It was at the end of the First World War, in 1918, that the worst epidemic was to spread across the world.
It was believed to have started from the battlefields of France and quickly spread to ravage Europe, the United States, India and Australia.
By the start of 1919, deaths in England and Wales from the virus numbered 112,329.
The quickness of the spread was blamed on the vast crowds that gathered to celebrate the ending of the First World War in November of the previous year, and the mass emigration of people wanting homes after the war’s destruction of their previous ones.
The 1918-19 epidemic in England and Wales came in three waves, the first in June-July 1918, the second in October and November 1918, which was more severe, and the third arriving at the beginning of 1919, although this was much weaker.
It was estimated that over a three-year period to 1920, deaths from influenza in England and Wales reached 150,000.
Although the disease was a serious matter some publications brought humour, with various quotes and cartoons, such as the Morning Post in January 1920 with the following poem:
Microbe elusive, hateful and accursed,
Returned once more to do your worst,
Until, with aching back and shaking knees,
All life is one prolonged unceasing sneeze.
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