The Flu That Killed 50 Million
BBC TWO, 9.00PM; SCOTLAND, 11.15PM
With coverage for the centenary of the Armistice ramping up, BBC Two turns its focus to the flu pandemic of 1918, which is estimated to have killed over 50million people. Using diaries, speeches and previously unseen letters, this enthralling film paints a picture of how easily a pandemic can spread, and in doing so reminds us that this is not some terrible event consigned to history but something that could still devastate today.
Amid the careful retelling, a handful of stories stand out: we learn how the flu spread from a farm in Kansas to the trenches of the First World War, hear why Chief Medical Officer Arthur Newsholme’s response was inadequate and watch as two doctors, Basil Hood in London and James Niven in Manchester, desperately try to stop the spread of the disease. There are also a series of visceral vignettes, including Hood’s description of a dying nurse, slowly drowning in her “thin, bloodstained sputum”, seven-year-old Ada Barry’s heartbroken response to her mother’s death and the horrifying description of HMS Leviathan’s eight-day journey across the Atlantic during which the refrigerators slowly filled with bodies.