On this day 100 years ago
Friday, Oct. 4, 1918. “The conditions in Saratoga Springs are not alarming,” The Saratogian reports as an influenza epidemic intensifies nationwide, but “There are a number of instances where they are distressing.”
The paper hasn’t reported the number of cases in the Spa City, but the situation has gotten bad enough for Liberty Loan committee chairman John A. T. Schwarte to cancel all scheduled parades and rallies for the time being.
“The action was taken by the committee after Chairman Schwarte had consulted with the health officer [Dr. A. Sherman Downs] and given every consideration to the fact that in every other community beginning at the Nation’s Capitol in Washington, the Liberty Loan committees have deemed it wise, in the interest of ‘Safety First,’ to discontinue any public gatherings for the advancement of the loan,” a reporter writes.
Dr. Downs ordered the city’s movie theaters closed yesterday, while public school superintendent Charles Mosher announced that he would leave it up to parents’ discretion whether their children should go to school during the epidemic.
While the number of cases in Saratoga Springs is unknown, the situation in Schuylerville illustrates the severity of the epidemic. At least five people have died in the vicinity in the last two weeks, and according to a wire-service report, Schuylerville and Victory together have three hundred cases of flu, “with but three physicians to care for them.”
Nationwide, more than 175,000 cases have been reported, with one in every 27 cases fatal by the latest estimate. Military training camps have been hit hard, with Camp Devens in Massachusetts, the first destination of many Saratoga County draftees, reporting nearly 13,000 cases and nearly 700 deaths.
“There is no occasion for panic,” an editorial writer insists, “In fact, to get panicstricken at the thought of the approach of the epidemic is the worst thing anyone can do.
“All the experts agree that the thing to do is, first, to use ordinary horse sense in taking care of yourself; and second, if the ‘flu’ strikes you, to go to bed at once and call a doctor. That’s all there is to it.”
That’s not quite all, according to letter writer Gertrude Long Andrus. Noting that many flu victims actually succumb to pneumonia, Andrus submits her family’s traditional pneumonia remedy, the onion poultice.
Andrus advises readers to cook a mixture of chopped onions, rye flour and “enough vinegar to make a paste.” This is to be spread on a cotton cloth over the lungs “hot as can be borne” and replaced every ten minutes. “In a few hours [the] patient will be out of danger,” she promises.