Journal+Entry+1


 * Journal Entry #1 **
 * May 1918 **

 Today, I was reading the newspaper, and for the first time in a long time, the headline was not of “The Great War”. For the past few years, the headline for the New York Times has always related to the progression of World War 1 going on in Europe at this time. The headline on this morning’s paper read **“SPANISH FLU: KILLING MORE THAN THE WAR”**.  As a retired doctor, this immediately caught my eye. At the peak of my career, I held practice in my own clinic, and rarely did I ever see something as serious as this Spanish Flu. It had been a few years since I retired and retreated with my wife to the countryside, but I could sense something was wrong. There  has not been a great pandemic since smallpox and that happened when my mother was young. I turned some pages and read the main article. It further explained that this was a flu that spread rapidly and had already killed millions. From what I know about influenza, they have the potential of being dangerous if the disease itself caused a lot of damage to the system. Upon reading the military reports, I learned that fleets of men are coming down with the disease and dying more in barrack than on the front lines of battle. What is going on right now is peculiar. Why is a flu killing more people than a war? I wrote letters to friends in the city and they do not understand this as well. Their responses tell me more about the disease, and from that, I can craft my own reasoning. I suspect that this is a new disease, for the symptoms have never been in this combination before. My colleagues promise to keep me informed with any new developments. Pockets of the disease are appearing in all corners of the world brought on by men engaging in war, and bringing the disease home with them. Though I feel safe in the countryside, where there is little interaction, I cannot help but think about what it’s like for doctors currently working in hospital. They must be inundated with patients of the war and of the flu. And for something to kill more than a war must be unlike anything I have ever experienced. This seems like a serious flu, and there is nothing to be done that can stop it but to let it run its course. I fear the amount of lives that will be lost by the end.


 * The death toll as of now is 4 million. **