Epidemic - still a terrifying word
Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, March 21, 2004
On that day, which was 86 years ago, the medical clinic at Fort Riley, Kan., discovered what ailed 107 soldiers who had become ill - it was Spanish Influenza. By the time it ended nearly three years later, one-quarter of all Americans had been ill with "the flu," and worldwide, 1 percent of the world's entire population had died, numbering more than 22 million.
It was an epidemic, a disease which attacks many people in widespread areas at about the same time, and it quickly turned into a pandemic, the more fearsome name for when it become a worldwide disaster.
Through the centuries, "plagues" are reported as long ago as 400 BC, when most of the army of the Athenians died in Greece. Probably the greatest killer ever was the bubonic plague, or "Black Death" that devastated Europe for more than a century, between 1300 and 1400. It was determined that humans were killed by germs from fleas that infected rats. When the rats were killed, the epidemic slowed and finally ended, but not until 60 million humans died from it.
Syphilis killed thousands in Europe in the 1500s, and cholera traveled around the world, through India, Russia, Europe and America. While the Panama Canal was being built, work crews and settlers suffered numerous minor epidemics, including yellow fever, malaria and bubonic plague, which slowed construction until 1914. However, lessons were being learned for controlling and defeating epidemics, so that when work on the canal began, seven out of 1,000 who contracted illnesses died. By completion time, that number had been whittled to two out of 1,000.
Then came "the Spanish Flu" of 1918, and its three-year reign. No part of the USA was spared, and today there are still many people who remember their parents or other relatives dying or recovering from the dread disease.
No doubt there are still people in their 80s and 90s who actually were stricken by "flu." In the Thumb, as in most parts of the country, panic was often as great a problem as the disease itself. Well-versed that flu was being spread by personal contact, members' meetings were canceled, crowds were avoided, school had "closed" days or weeks. Business and shopping were adversely affected, church attendance fell, public events were reduced, and there were streams of information on whether or whether not "germ masks" had any value to avoid exposure.
Many homes had red cards in windows or nailed to the doors, warning would-be visitors that "Influenza" patients were in that place. Doctors and nurses worked around the clock, hospitals were overcrowded, and in moderate-weather areas emergency tent hospitals were set up, possibly with good results from fresh air, against spreading the disease. In Sebewaing there were two hospitals in what have been private homes for many decades, one at 117 South Center and the other to the south, at 351 South Center. Both were busy extensively during the flu years.
Among local happenings that occurred because of the flu, one event returned a member of the "Doctor Herrington family" to Bad Axe, after a brief period in Sebewaing.
Dr. Charles Irvin Herrington, son of Dr. Willet J. Herrington, Sr., was born in Grindstone City in 1893, to Euphemia (Cooper) Herrington. By 1898 Doctor Willet Herrington's practice had expanded so much that he moved his family to Bad Axe. Later he became the first chief physician/surgeon at Hubbard Memorial Hospital.
Young Charles Irvin graduated from Hillsdale College and Wayne State University School of Medicine, and set up his first office to practice medicine in Sebewaing in April, 1919, in the upstairs rooms of the Doctors Friedlaender and Jones.
During the influenza epidemic near the close of WWI, Thumb doctors were working tirelessly, as they did all around the country. Thus, in 1919, the Huron Medical Society met in Bad Axe to raise fees for all doctors' calls. The new rates were: in town $1.50; night calls, $2; out-of-town, $2 minimum; all calls, 75 cents per mile. Confinement cases within a 5-mile radius, uncomplicated, were priced at $16, and beyond the 6- mile radius 75 cents extra. All county doctors agreed on those prices.
While tending the sick, Dr. Willet Herrington became ill with the flu as he was returning on the train from visiting a patient in Deckerville. He had contracted the dreaded flu and the doctor died several days later, on Feb. 10, 1920.
Dr. Charles Irvin Herrington thereupon left his Sebewaing practice to take over his father's practice in Bad Axe. The young doctor married Phoebe Clark in 1924, and they had a son, Clark, and daughter, Mary.
Doctor Charles was on the Hubbard Memorial Hospital staff for 48 years, where he was medical director for many years. He passed on in 1967 at the age of 73.
Dr. Charles' son, Clark, also became a doctor and practiced in Bad Axe, celebrating 100 years since his grandfather first became a doctor serving Huron County. He was married to Jeannette Buckley in 1950, and they are the parents of Bad Axe attorney David Herrington. Dr. Clark Herrington retired in 1982.
Thus, Sebewaing's loss of a doctor became Bad Axe's gain.
All around America - in fact, all around the world - there are accounts of lives affected and lives lost, due to that flu epidemic. World War I saw American battle deaths number about 82,000, yet there were well over 430,000 deaths from flu in the "worst" six months of the illness, or about five flu deaths for every battle death.
Today, the world plans and convenes over deaths and how to prevent them. AIDS is one of the world's worst fears and there are thousands working to find ways to reduce and eliminate epidemic deaths.
Writers find that man's fight against diseases and epidemics creates the most exciting and most satisfying topics, hopeful, even confident that total protection may someday evolve from such findings as cracking the genetic code.
On the other hand, a TV special on future medical advances in the past weekend, ended with a grave warning that "greater and worse epidemics are lurking just around the corner."
Walt Rummel writes for the Huron Daily Tribune.