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Lessons from the past
Lessons from the past hold true 100 years later
Rita Nicholson | Copy Editor
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Eerily similar to the present, a pandemic swept through the country more than 100 years ago. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 killed millions of people worldwide, with 675,000 deaths in the United States, according to the Indianapolis Star’s article, “Here’s how Indianapolis escaped the 1918 Spanish flu with one of the lowest death rates.”
Measures were taken in Indiana to prevent the spread of the illness. Some of these preventative measures seem to be mirrored in the present. For instance, according to an article by The Influenza Epidemic, in 1918, the Indianapolis governor ordered that gatherings of more than five people were prohibited. A lot of businesses were forced to close, and schools, colleges and churches were also shut down. Streetcars were required to keep the windows open when operating, and it was recommended that people do the same with the windows at home, no matter the weather.
Spitting was also discouraged, and The Influenza Epidemic website said eventually “health inspectors began riding Indianapolis streetcars to check sanitation and to discourage spitting” on the streets.
The 1918 epidemic also hit closer to home. Slight mentions of the flu were prevalent in the SHS yearbook in 1919, which provided coverage of the year prior in 1918. The Junior Notes section says, “Several of the Juniors have the ‘flu’ and are unable to be in school.” According to the school calendar, the “‘Flu’ scare [was] again prevalent.” On Oct. 9, there was an “Enforced vacation, because of the ‘Flu’” that lasted for four weeks, and the SHS athletic season was also cut short due to the pandemic.
“The past season has been short, due to the influenza situation, which closed the schools for over a month, thus causing some of the games to be canceled, cutting the schedule of games to be played almost half,” said the staff of The Columbian, Scottsburg High School’s yearbook, in the athletics section in 1919.
Even though the Spanish flu pandemic happened in 1918, the present is facing a similar situation with COVID-19. Once again, public places have been closed, including SHS. It is almost as if the past is repeating itself, but today, the world can learn from the 1918 pandemic by looking to the past.
