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In 1977, historian Margaret Andrews found herself on the hunt for a Vancouver doctor who\u2019d worked during the Spanish flu outbreak.<\/p>\n
It had been six decades since the wartime pandemic hit the city, but she managed to find a doctor who was still alive. He was living in a seniors\u2019 home and shared with her his account of the flu\u2019s toll on the local health-care system at a desperate time when emergency nurses were recruited from the community with as little as 30 minutes of training.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just worked till we were exhausted,\u201d the doctor told her.<\/p>\n
The flu arrived in 1918, with many doctors and nurses still in Europe for service during the First World War. There were only about 200 nurses<\/a> in Vancouver.<\/p>\n At one point only half of them were available, the rest too busy caring for their families or sick themselves. Doctors had no time to care for their own patients, instead tending to whoever needed urgent care. One man saw five different doctors during his bout of flu.<\/p>\n Andrews published her paper<\/a> on the topic in BC Studies<\/em> in 1977, and it remains a key work in a neglected area of research, even though that pandemic affected one-third of the world\u2019s population.<\/p>\n But with new interest in infectious diseases due to COVID-19, Andrews was invited in December to speak at an event<\/a> held by the Friends of the Vancouver City Archives and compare the Spanish flu in Vancouver with the pandemic today.<\/p>\n On the scarcity of research, Andrews told the audience that it was as if the flu had been \u201cabsorbed\u201d in the trauma and death toll of the war. Still, it killed almost as many Canadians.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s amazing the whole experience subsided,\u201d said Andrews, who is a professor emeritus of Washington State University.<\/p>\n I wondered: Did Vancouverites of the 1910s do as they were told by health authorities? Did they frantically hoard items, toilet paper, or otherwise?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what Andrews and other experts had to say about the two pandemics a century apart, and the curiosities of human behaviour that come out in a crisis.<\/p>\n Vancouver was hit hard by the Spanish flu<\/strong><\/p>\n The flu arrived in Vancouver on Oct. 5, 1918, the final year of the war.<\/p>\n It spread through the province by rail and steamship travellers. October was also the end of the season for many resource industries, and the flu hit Indigenous peoples<\/a> such as the Nisga\u2019a and the Kitwanga hard as workers returned home after outbreaks at canneries.<\/p>\n While some cities experienced only a single wave, Vancouver was hit by three. The second and third waves followed in January and March 1919, after which the pandemic subsided. (We\u2019ve already endured a longer pandemic with COVID-19.)<\/p>\n Vancouver then had a population of about 100,000. A conservative estimate of flu cases is 30,000, with 900 deaths. Adults between 20 and 40 and pregnant women were hit the hardest.<\/p>\n There was squabbling between bureaucrats and politicians over the government response, but aid was delivered nonetheless, with schools like King Edward on the west side turned into hospitals and non-profits and service organizations like the Rotary Club stepping in to provide volunteers.<\/p>\n Andrews found that Vancouver\u2019s death rate was the third-highest among North American cities, after Philadelphia and Baltimore. In comparison, Spokane and Seattle were the continent\u2019s lowest.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know how one can explain the difference between Vancouver and Seattle,\u201d said Andrews. \u201cI think of Seattle being a twin city in many regards \u2014 logging, seaport.\u201d<\/p>\n One researcher believes<\/a> Vancouver\u2019s death rate might\u2019ve been because the city was a launch point of the Siberian Expeditionary Force into Russia to oppose the Bolshevik Revolution, with Canadian and American soldiers from around the continent gathering in the city around the time of the outbreak.<\/p>\n Andrews hopes future historians will dig into the mystery.<\/p>\n The death rate from the flu was nine times higher in B.C.\u2019s Indigenous population than the general population, with youth and Elders among the victims.<\/p>\n While the 1918 flu killed about one percent of the city\u2019s population, COVID-19 has killed 0.03 percent of residents in the Vancouver Coastal Health region so far.<\/p>\n Nationwide, the flu killed 55,000, nearing the 60,000 Canadians who were killed in the First World War.<\/p>\n Today, we\u2019re advised to \u2018keep calm\u2019 and physically distance. A century ago, BC followed \u2018the three Cs.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n While public health recommendations during the Spanish flu share some similarities with today\u2019s for COVID-19 \u2014 \u201cAvoid the Other Fellow\u2019s Breath\u201d and \u201cBe Unsociable for a Change\u201d at the top of the list \u2014 they were focused on promoting cleanliness rather than targeting methods of transmission, said Andrews.<\/p>\n The provincial recommendations centred on the three Cs of \u201cclean mouth, clean skin, clean clothes.\u201d People were told to cover their mouths when they coughed and keep windows open for ventilation, and also advised to not let their feet get wet or wear clothes with low necklines.<\/p>\n It was a 19th-century British approach to health, but overall not very effective at countering flu spread.<\/p>\n However, it did help in one type of public space: washrooms. Common towels and cups used in the washrooms were removed, for example, preventing spread.<\/p>\n Vancouver\u2019s chief medical officer also called for public drinking fountains to shoot water in an arc rather than vertically.<\/p>\n And there was special advice for children. Don\u2019t lick another child\u2019s sucker. Don\u2019t play in muddy ditches. Swat flies, because they carry germs. Keep your school desk clean and tidy.<\/p>\n Quarantines are novel to us, but they were once a part of life.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAlmost every adult would\u2019ve been in quarantine [at some point] as a child,\u201d said Andrews, with common diseases like mumps, measles, and chickenpox keeping children at home.<\/p>\n In quarantine, \u201cThe home may be fumigated and there may be a placard at your front door. So all this was an experience that they had.\u201d<\/p>\n Vancouverites in the 2020 pandemic marched for Black Lives Matter and solidarity with Sikh farmers. A century ago, people marched for the war effort.<\/strong><\/p>\n When soldiers returned \u2014 \u201cstraight from the war fields of Europe,\u201d as the Province reported \u2014 the flu did not stop crowds from gathering to welcome them home.<\/p>\n Even as the city banned indoor meetings, outdoor events such as the Victory Loan Drive took place as planned.<\/p>\n Harry Gardiner, the American daredevil known as the Human Fly, showed up to help promote victory loans. In Vancouver, thousands turned up to watch him scale the Hotel Vancouver and later the World Tower (now known as the Sun Tower), which at 82 metres was then the tallest building in the British Empire. Gardiner performed the stunt wearing street clothes and did not use any equipment.<\/p>\n Victoria was also treated to a visit by the Human Fly, who scaled the city\u2019s Union Bank Building to large crowds. It prompted the city\u2019s medical health officer to chide attendees in a public letter.<\/p>\n \u201cWake up!\u201d he wrote. \u201cAre there still some citizens of Victoria who do not realize that there is an epidemic of influenza raging through the city? Judging from the crowd which gathered in Government and View streets yesterday, one might be led to believe that there were many who knew nothing of the epidemic. Or is it that they know of the epidemic and yet are so selfish that they cannot forego the satisfying of their curiosity to see a foolhardy and useless feat \u2014 a man apparently endangering his solitary life \u2014 while they, the spectators, we\u2019re doing a much more foolish thing and were endangering the lives of many. They were doing the very thing to increase and prolong the epidemic in our midst.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, it was a war-related event, but didn\u2019t people fear for their lives?<\/p>\n Andrews\u2019 answer: \u201cConsistency is not necessarily part of human makeup. I think it would be quite possible for a mother to keep her kid home from school but go down to watch the Human Fly climb the Hotel Vancouver,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On Nov. 7, 1918, there was a false report that the war was over, which drew wild crowds. The real armistice on Nov. 11, of course, also drew the masses.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing could stop people from celebrating,\u201d said Andrews.<\/p>\n In both pandemics, there was drama over the kids.<\/strong><\/p>\n Amid COVID-19, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry has said it\u2019s safe for schooling to continue because transmission in schools is \u201cvery unlikely.\u201d<\/p>\n Vancouver\u2019s medical health officer a century ago similarly said that schools were a safe place to keep children under supervision.<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies were larger,\u201d said Andrews. \u201cAnd so the mothers would tend to feed the kids and then say go out and play. And there might be four, five, six kids in a family. And so the outdoors was the \u2018normal\u2019 place for children… [It was claimed] they would get into muddy ditches and they would be exposed to the virus, and they were much safer in school. Schools had nurses who visited regularly, and there was a school doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the rest of the city, everything except workplaces like offices and factories were closed to discourage indoor spread. Some churches were peeved by the decision but chose to continue meeting outdoors.<\/p>\n While there was no toilet paper war, pharmacists attempted price gouging for camphor.<\/strong><\/p>\n Camphor was a popular cough remedy at the time, thought to help with the flu based on the rationale that \u201cit smells powerful, it should do some good,\u201d said Andrews.<\/p>\n Drug stores raised its price from 40 cents a pound to $6.50 in one week.<\/p>\n It caused such public outrage that city council considered buying the drugs and selling them to the public at cost.<\/p>\n \u201cThen of course the pharmacists took the price tag down,\u201d said Andrews.<\/p>\n In nearby Victoria, cinnamon essence and bark were both popular remedies from drug stores.<\/p>\n Anti-maskers seem a more recent phenomenon.<\/strong><\/p>\n While there were ads during the 1918 flu for face coverings and some recommendations to wear masks, it wasn\u2019t as heated an issue as it is today, said Andrews.<\/p>\n One ad from Tom the Tailor sold face coverings \u201cmade of pure wool with medicated canvas interior.\u201d Wearers \u201cneed fear no grippe when you wear one of these,\u201d declared Tom.<\/p>\n While masks were mandatory in Seattle and in Alberta and Saskatchewan, they were not in Vancouver, though the city\u2019s medical health officer did advise people to wear cheesecloth coverings or gauze over their nose and mouth.<\/p>\n However, there isn\u2019t much record of mass mask-wearing in Vancouver, with the exception of the city\u2019s Japanese population. The Province newspaper gave them special credit for being early adopters:<\/p>\n \u201cThe sons and daughters of Nippon in large numbers have been appearing in public with gauze veils for some days under the advice of their three Japanese physicians, who have been successfully fighting the epidemic in the Japanese colony. Rooming-house people and store proprietors in \u2018Japantown\u2019 are universally wearing the \u2018flu\u2019 mask now.\u201d<\/p>\n Like today, race and morality came into play.<\/strong><\/p>\n Andy Yan, the director of Simon Fraser University\u2019s City Program, also joined Andrews\u2019 talk, and dug up some old newspapers from the 1910s.<\/p>\n Even before the 1918 flu, the Vancouver World newspaper had a habit of blaming illness among the city\u2019s Chinese immigrants on their \u201cwages of sin\u201d and the overcrowded conditions in which they \u201cinsisted in living.\u201d<\/p>\n This ignores the fact that discrimination left many immigrants few housing options, Yan said, and hints at the drama of property and power that continues to play out in the city today.<\/p>\n Chinatown was called a \u201creservoir of disease\u201d<\/a> during the flu, with similar stigma towards the nearby neighbourhood of Strathcona due to its high population of immigrants that also included Italians and Jews. It was similar<\/a> to the blame of areas of working-class newcomers today.<\/p>\n Targeting the Chinese showed a double standard considering that the residents of the Downtown Eastside, mostly blue-collar workers like loggers, lived in similar rooming houses, said Vancouver historian and heritage consultant John Atkin, who also joined the talk.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was not the same outrage,\u201d said Atkin.<\/p>\n Medical health officers at the time often went down to bust Chinatown buildings for being unsanitary, including the Chinese hospital itself. Residents began to fear these raids<\/a> and the subsequent calls for demolition more than the flu itself.<\/p>\n All in all, Vancouver during the Spanish flu looked relatively… normal.<\/strong><\/p>\n Perusing through the city archives for images of the flu years, you might not even know there was a pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll see how surprisingly ordinary the city looks,\u201d said Atkin. \u201cEveryone\u2019s out doing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n The flu hit near the end of the war, after four years of toil, and Andrews wonders if it was just accepted as \u201cone more element\u201d of an already tumultuous time.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Christopher Cheung is a reporter at The Tyee<\/a>, where this story originally appeared on Jan. 8, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"