Severe epidemics tend to occur every few decades, and the latest one is upon us.
Today scientists know more about how to isolate and handle large numbers of ill and dying patients, and physicians can prescribe antibiotics, not available in 1918, to combat secondary bacterial infections. To such common-sense practices as social distancing and hand-washing, contemporary medicine can add the creation of vaccinations and anti-viral drugs.
For the foreseeable future, viral epidemics will remain a regular feature of human life. As a society, we can only hope that we have learned the great pandemic’s lessons sufficiently well to quell the current COVID-19 challenge.
In this October 1918 photo made available by the Library of Congress, St. Louis Red Cross Motor Corps personnel wear masks as they hold stretchers next to ambulances in preparation for victims of the influenza epidemic. (Library of Congress via AP)
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This is an updated version of a story that originally ran on Jan. 11, 2018.
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Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
