‘Doctors Warn Against Use of Whiskey to Ward Disease. It Doesn’t Do It’

1918 pandemic both encircled and infiltrated Pierce County

“The use of whiskey as a preventative is wrong,” a newspaper from west-central Wisconsin warned its readers about then rumored miracle medicines thought to combat the 1918 pandemic flu on its front page for October 25, 1918. “It (whiskey) does not do it.” Meanwhile, the same paper told its readers, those who were burning sulphur and other disinfectants in a bid to ward off the flu bug were actually making themselves more susceptible to the dreaded disease, as this practice inflamed the mucous membranes of the throat and nose, lowering the body’s natural defenses. With the study of disease spread (epidemiology) in its infancy and not understood all that well at the time, the 1918 flu pandemic is now thought to have been spread by troop movements during World War I among other means, while widespread wartime censorship led to a conspiracy of silence prevailing initially in many countries in order to avoid demoralization in the

See PIERCE COUNTY PANDEMIC, Page 12

Photo by Joseph Back. war effort, although “cases are usually light,” the newspaper also stated at the time. Reportedly invading entire households, the 1918 flu virus attacked anyone and everyone that wasn’t immune, leading to isolation and quarantine measures becoming necessary, the old and time tested way of controlling deadly disease. Years earlier on February 23, 1900 issue of Pierce County’s own Prescott Tribune, it was reported that progress had been made in the understanding of hygienic measures to control disease germs on wall coverings.

“The investigations of Vito lo Bosco, an Italian hygienist, show that paper and tapestry wall-coverings in houses are favorable to the preservation of disease germs,” the Tribune related to its readers, going on to say that, “On the other hand, walls covered with stucco or good varnish cannot only be readily freed from germs by washing, but they possess the property of cleansing themselves spontaneously from bacteria lodged upon them. It has been found that the germs of typhoid, of cholera, and of pneumonia, when placed on such walls, perish within 24 hours, while on walls covered with dried size they survive for weeks, and even months. Dampness increases and prolongs the danger.” In an age when those suffering from localized rural epidemics had few doctors and often no hospitals as well—though cities were no refuge either—this was valuable information. For so called “pest houses” used to quarantine sufferers of different pestilences, the insides were sometimes fumigated and scrubbed with chemicals like carbolic acid after each case, to kill the germs first proposed as being the cause of disease by physician John Snow after he studied a cholera epidemic in London in 1854. For additional context, modern hygienic measures only became common after the observation during the Crimean War that doctors with bloody work coats had higher death rates in their wards than the cleaner kept nurse-run ones. Welcome to the old practice of medicine, not like modern medicine— and even modern medicine has its limits and learning curve to surmount with COVID-19 at present.

As regards past quarantine and isolation though, there was no other practical way in those far off days to limit the threat posed by diseases like scarlet fever, yellow fever, typhoid, malaria, or others. But whereas localized epidemics were common in the days before hospital service and public healthcare became widespread, there was one show of disease that outdid them all: the 1918 worldwide “Spanish Flu” pandemic, thought by modern researchers to have originated in part from birds, before jumping to mammals sometime between 1900 and 1915. Sound familiar?

Coined from the Greek “pan” (all) and “demos” (people) with an English noun suffix to localize it somewhat, the word “pandemic” is by definition unlimited in its human reach, affecting all nations and peoples. But as statistics can sometimes lead to impersonality and gloss over the human situation, it may help for us to home in somewhat on the local situation during the bird-sourced 1918 flu pandemic, in order to get a better handle on the present parallels and what to do. Just what exactly was the situation for the 1918 flu pandemic in Pierce County and the surrounding area? Our first clue comes in from a page four advertisement in the December 28, 1918 issue for The Appeal of St. Paul, Minnesota. Already vanquished by Christmas, according to the party announcement.

“The war is over, the “Flu” has gone So get your best girl and bring her along To the dance where you’ll never grow weary To the Elk’s big doings the 6th of January,” a celebratory box ad said. Located in the South Side Auditorium on Twelth (Twelfth) Avenue South at Third Avenue, the Installation Ball of Elk Lodge No. 106 was going to be a huge society event, it was recorded. Meanwhile on the same page down in the Saint Paul “locals” column—the one that let you be nosey about your neighbors prior to Facebook—was a more somber and caution-inducing announcement, the opposite of the advertised one: “The many friends of Mrs. J. A. Sutton, formerly Alice Vassar, have been grieved to learn that Mr. Sutton passed away two week ago Tuesday, after a short illness from flu, at their home, Waldeck, Sask. (Saskatchewan). Mr. Sutton is survived by his wife and three small children. Mrs. Sutton and two of the children are very ill at this time. Mrs. Vassar of this city left last week for Canada to be with her daughter.”

So said the St. Paul ‘locals’ column. Three cities, two countries, different experiences and many divergent opinions on the matter— sound familiar? Meanwhile, just over a month earlier, the Dunn County News on the other side of Pierce had another cautionary report on its front page for November 7, 1918: “PHYSICIANS REPORT “FLU” ON INCREASE,” the Dunn County News related as it reported that the premises of a private dwelling at 409 Wilson Avenue “known as the Lucas house” had been “equipped as an influenza hospital” and was receiving patients. The ban had been lifted on local school activities and the reason for any absences ordered traced by the local district superintendent, while the Dunn County News reported that “as an indication of the drift of the epidemic in this city it may be stated that although the hospital was opened only yesterday it already contains twelve patients…” Meanwhile to the west at River Falls, the news was better. The local flu situation wasn’t “over,” but it was “favorable,” the River Falls Journal for January 23, 1919 reported. From the City on the Kinni: “The influenza situation at the local Normal school (now called UW-River Falls) is very favorable,” School President J. H. Ames made it known to the Journal’s readers. “At the present date, Jan. 22, there are only three cases among the Normal School students, two of whom are at the school hospital…,” Ames related. “It is of vital importance that the school attending make a good showing this year, inasmuch as the legislature is now in session,” he went on, saying that a failure to make good attendance after being “closed for so many weeks during the Fall” would provide a strong argument for those who tended to stress “economy” in limiting school expenditures, including then current proposals for farm and training school buildings at River Falls. In any case though, the situation in River Falls was better than elsewhere, as overall statistics relate.

Over its’ total lifespan the number of people that the 1918 flu pandemic killed overall is estimated at the CDC website to have been 50 million worldwide or one person out of every 10 cases. Of this worldwide death total, 675,000 were within the United States. Additionally, in contrast to the current pandemic, the 1918 flu predomin atelystruck—and killed—the young, as opposed to the more elderly. When later reconstructed and studied under strictly controlled laboratory conditions in mice during the first decade of the 21st Century at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, the reconstructed 1918 pandemic virus caused 39,000 times more amount of virus to appear in mice cells, while a doctor who was closely associated with reconstruction and study efforts, said that eight different genes taken in combination resulted in the overall lethality of the 1918 pandemic, rather than any one factor alone. As it turns out, though, there was life and recovery from the 1918 flu as well, reported in the Dunn County News.

“Grace Goedecke returned from River Falls Sunday evening,” the News reported, saying that Grace had been in the hospital for the past two weeks with influenza. Meanwhile, returning in the other direction was a Dunn County resident off to college at the Normal School, otherwise known as UW-River Falls today. Also from the News: “Hazel Trippe, who has been home ill has been able to return to River Falls this week, and continues her studies at the Normal,” the Dunn County News for January 23, 1919 reported. Another Western Wisconsin newspaper had its caution against a rumored curative in whiskey, the newspaper’s “High School Notes” for November 19, 1920 had interesting news to report on page five regarding a football game at the Eau Claire Normal between the Stanley and Mondovi high schools: careful preparations and barely any fans allowed on the games sidelines. More specifically, the announcement in the paper said that: “Absolutely no adherents of either team will be allowed on the side lines with the exception of five men, and these must remain seated and in one place,” the weekly stated. “… Each team will be allowed not to exceed five men not in football uniform on the side lines and…one of the officials will keep the time,” as the notice writer George L. Simpson closed out by saying that, “I hope that everything is satisfactory and that you have a good day for the game.”

By the following fall in 1921, the most common computer search words including the “flu” the area were ‘influence,’ ‘fluctuation,’ and ‘fluid’—but not “Flu.”—this no longer made the news as widely, though ‘sick lists’ continued, as they still do.

In the years after the 1918 flu pandemic and as modern medical knowledge advanced however, there was another threat to confront it seems: young children getting a hold of patent medicines and dying. From the Dunn County News of January 25, 1923: CHILD TAKES BOX OF PATENT PILLS; DIES IN AN HOUR… Little Jacob Daniel Miller, 3 years and 4 months old, is Dunn County’s latest child victim of drugs of which the nature was unknown.

At his home in the Dunkard* settlement in the town of Weston Saturday afternoon, unobserved by other members of the family, he climbed upon a chair and reached with his chubby hands a small wooden box fixed with a “patent” medicine known as “Diamond Dinner Pills,” which had been left in a cabinet….”

Found by his mother who sensed the seriousness of the situation, little Jacob was administered castor oil to make him vomit, which he did, but this proved insufficient, and within one hour from the fatal pill dosage, little Jacob Miller was dead, from convulsions followed by a stopped heartbeat.

“…From the symptoms it is believed the child died of strychnine poisoning,” the Dunn County News reported to its readers. “Though each pill might contain but a small quantity of the poison, in the aggregate he swallowed enough to produce fatal results….” The remaining six pills left unconsumed were being sent to a state lab for content analysis.

In the years after the pest house had been vanquished as a necessity to control diseases and hospital service became firmly established, when the 1918 flu pandemic had come and gone while vaccines were on the rise for other deadly illnesses, the threat of deadly patent medicines, was also on the rise—the polio and opoid crises still to come. A doctor or nurse’s work it seems, is never done.

*“Dunkard” was a term then used of those who insisted upon full immersion baptism, as opposed to the sprinkling used by other churches, and is kept for historical reasons, and so clarified.

Newspaper image courtesy UW-River Falls University Archives and Area History Center.

The Pierce County Herald for December 19, 1918 announced the death of Clarence Lawrence (photo) from pneumonia suffered as a complication of the flu pandemic. Mr. Lawrence hadn’t notified his parents so as not to worry them, so that it wasn’t until after his passing that they found out. At right, a gravestone in Maiden Rock Cemetery.