CHARLIE CHAPLIN, DR. TUTTLE AND THE DEADLY SPANISH FLU
There are many lessons to be learned from the pandemic that swept the globe in 1918
Avoid public gatherings. Close churches and theatres. Don’t shake hands. Don’t spit. Wear masks.
Sounds like Dr. Anthony Fauci in 2020. But those words were spoken by Dr. Thomas Tuttle in 1918 when the “Spanish flu,” which did not originate in Spain, was sweeping across the globe. Countries involved in the First World War censored stories about the flu so as not to create even more panic than that sparked by the war. Spain was neutral and newspapers published extensively about the flu in that country, forever linking the disease with Spain.
Tuttle was a specialist in infectious diseases and had been appointed health commissioner in the state of Washington. Although viruses had not yet been discovered, he was convinced the disease was spread through human contact, particularly by the coughs and sneezes of people who had been infected. He even raised the prospect of individuals transmitting the disease without being sick themselves, a situation now termed “asymptomatic transmission.”
Tuttle learned of an outbreak of flu on a steamship travelling from Nome, Alaska to Seattle, and wondered how that could have happened, given that no cases of flu had been reported in Nome. The conclusion was that someone boarded the ship and spread the infection, despite having experienced no symptoms.
Based on his observations, Tuttle advocated what today is called “social distancing,” and even managed to convince the mayor of Seattle to impose fines for not wearing a mask on a streetcar and for spitting on the sidewalk. Not unlike today, there was opposition to the severe measures, especially the closing of churches. The mayor responded by suggesting that “religion which won’t keep for two weeks is not worth having.”
With the implementation of Tuttle’s recommendations, the spread of the flu in Seattle slowed significantly, and other cities took note. San Francisco imposed a $5 fine, heavy at the time, for “disturbing the peace” by not wearing a mask in public. St. Louis banned public gatherings and closed schools with results that sharply contrasted with cities that did not take severe measures — such as Philadelphia.
The “City of Brotherly Love” went ahead with a parade to raise money for the war effort that led to the flu spreading like wildfire. In just one month, over 11,000 Philadelphia residents died, including 759 on the worst day of the outbreak. Special wagons drove around the city with drivers hollering “Bring out your dead!” The collected corpses were then buried in mass graves.
In New York, with the pandemic in full swing, a new Charlie Chaplin movie, Shoulder Arms, was for many film buffs too hot to resist, despite the city’s discouraging of public gatherings. The Little Tramp kidnapping the kaiser sounded like welcome relief from wartime news.
Many of the attendees got relief all right; they were relieved of their lives. The manager of the theatre, Harold Edel, on seeing the large opening-night crowd, exclaimed: “We think it is a most wonderful appreciation of Shoulder Arms that people should veritably take their lives in their hands to see it.” He probably did not think that one of those lives would be his. Edel died of the Spanish flu soon after mingling with the opening-night crowd.
Although Seattle was successful in temporarily curbing the pandemic, Tuttle warned that once restrictions were eased, a second wave would follow, and indeed it did. He became disenchanted with how various levels of government were interested only in dealing with the problems at hand and not in preparing for the next pandemic, which he believed was inevitable. He wrote that “owing to the inclination of our government (city, county, state and national) to provide funds for operating only when sickness is present, and to absolutely cut off any support whatsoever for the study of the epidemiology of the disease after an epidemic has passed, renders it very probable that we will meet our next epidemic (probably 20 or 30 years hence) with as little knowledge of the true nature of the disease as we had when we confronted the epidemic in the fall of 1918.”
In terms of time, he wasn’t off by much. In 1957, the “Asian flu” spread from China to the rest of the world, causing some 1.1. million deaths globally with about 116,000 in the U.S. But Tuttle was wrong about scientists having as little knowledge as in 1918. The electron microscope had been introduced in the 1930s, making viruses visible. By 1940, experiments were underway to produce antiviral vaccines, eventually leading to one that would be successful in containing the Asian flu pandemic. There was, of course, no vaccine to curb the Spanish flu of 1918-19. That plague eventually abated when infected people either developed immunity or died.
And what happened to Tuttle? Even though he was a visionary in terms of the effectiveness of physical distancing, masks and quarantine, his advocacy for essentially “shutting down” made him a very polarizing figure and resulted in him losing his job as health commissioner.
The Spanish-born philosopher George Santayana put it very well in his classic assertion that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” So let’s remember the Shoulder Arms disaster, and be very careful with rushing back to public gatherings. Luckily, technology now allows us to watch Chaplin’s films without having to go to the theatre. In these “Modern Times,” we can watch The Great Dictator in the comfort of home. Think twice about sharing the popcorn though. joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca
Joe Schwarcz is director of Mcgill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.
The ‘City of Brotherly Love’ went ahead with a parade to raise money for the war effort that led to the flu spreading like wildfire.