Influenza 1918, American Experience

Director: Robert Kenner
Narrator: Linda Hunt

sez says:  interesting bit of history. It must have been frightening to have lived through this epidemic. 600,000 dead in the USA, 33 million dead around the world-and this all happened in a very short time.  It started sometime in 1918 and hit its peak in October of that year, then mysteriously it tapered off.  No one anywhere had any idea how to stop it.  Certainly people tried, scientist worked feverishly, people turned to folk medicine, but there was nothing that worked.  And it was not killing the weakest members of society-it was killing the strongest.  A reminder that we really don't have all the answers--not then, not now. GRADE B -