INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC OF 1918

BY RIDLEY WILLS II

The influenza epidemic that began in 1918 was considered the deadliest in modern history, infecting an estimated 500 million people worldwide — about one-third of the population of the planet — and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans. It was caused by an H1N1 influenza virus with genes of avian origin. A myth was that it originated in Spain, and those who believed this called it the “Spanish Flu Epidemic,” though there was nothing to suggest that it came from Spain at all. The epidemic, which came in three waves, first hit Europe.

The flu infected 25% of American troops during World War I, killing more than 1 million men. More than one half of the casualties from The Great War were caused by the epidemic. There were no drugs or vaccines to treat it. When the influenza hit, doctors were hard pressed to help their patients. The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 impacted my family as well: Early in 1918, my grandfather, Dr. Matt Buckner, was practicing medicine with his good friend, Dr. Thomas Shadrach Weaver, in the Jackson Building on the corner of Church Street and Fifth Avenue North. Early that summer, Buckner, 47, and with three daughters still at home, volunteered to go to the U.S. Army. He received a commission in the U. S. Army Medical Corps as a Captain and assigned to Camp McClellan, outside Anniston, Ala. There he was named head of the Department of Sanitation, a temporary assignment as, at that point, there was not enough work in the wards to put him there.

The situation changed dramatically the first week in October, 1918, when the McClellan Hospital was getting loads of influenza and pneumonia patients. By Oct. 13, there were 3,836 patients in hospi tal rooms and along covered boardwalks. Matt’s ward was Pneumonia Ward #17. That day, he wrote his wife, Elizabeth, telling her that he had “never seen so many desperately sick men in my whole life as I have seen in the past two weeks.”

The same day, he learned of Tom Weaver’s death at Fort Oglethorpe of influenza. He also worried about his oldest daughter, Mary Harding, who, as a volunteer, was riding out to Old Hickory every day from Union Station to work in the Black Powder plant. In his letter of Oct. 13 to his wife, Buckner wrote we treat, “all our influenza patients with iron, quinine and strychnine.” By Oct. 16, the hospital’s patent load topped 4,000 as the influenza swept across the country. On Oct. 21, Matt wrote home that he had 40 pneumonia cases in his ward as the influx of new cases had decreased over the past three days. By the end of October, the situation continued to lighten up. The hospital was discharging about 1,000 patients a month and taking in between 20 or 30 a day. They were losing about six patients a day. Mostly the fatalities came when men, already weakened by influenza, caught pneumonia.

On Oct. 27, Matt had 27 men in his ward. He was weary and hoped to be home by Christmas. On Dec. 6, Buckner was given responsibility for all the wards on the west side of the hospital as well as the isolation ward. He did get Christmas leave and spent it at home with his wife and daughters. There, he enjoyed scotch stew and waffles for breakfast. Buckner returned to Fort McClellan in late December, where he remained until March 10, 1919, when he received orders to report at the Embarkation Hospital at Camp Stewart, Va., three miles from Newport News. This hospital was still busy taking care of sick soldiers coming home from Europe.

He was finally released from service on June 27, 1919, when he left Norfolk at 10:50 a.m. on a Southern Railroad train. He arrived in Nashville on Saturday morning.

He was officially discharged at Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville on July 13, 1919, exactly one year after he entered the service. Tom Weaver’s son, Thomas S. Weaver Jr. also became a physician. He was a pediatrician for Irene and my children. Our youngest son, Thomas Weaver Wills, who co-founded The Contributor, was named for him.