Editor's note: Perhaps the closest comparison to the new coronavirus pandemic is the worldwide Spanish influenza outbreak back in 1918. Read how Cincinnati responded when the flu reached the Queen City. Originally published Oct. 17, 2018.

One hundred years ago, in the fall of 1918, the world suffered through a Spanish influenza pandemic that was deadlier than the Black Death.

An estimated 500 million people – one-third of the world’s population – were infected. Between 50 million and 100 million died of influenza in 18 months.

The devastating virus, overshadowed by the last months of World War I, was felt on the homefront, where 675,000 Americans died of influenza or pneumonia.

The severity of the outbreak was kept secret in the early part of 1918 because reports were censored to keep up morale during the war. It was known as Spanish influenza because Spain, which had remained neutral during the war, was the only nation reporting on the illnesses.

Then, a second wave of influenza began in September 1918 at Camp Devens, an Army camp near Boston, but no one seemed to realize how bad it was, or how to treat it.

Incredibly, the influenza virus wasn’t discovered until 1933. Scientists now know that the Spanish flu was an H1N1 influenza virus.

Back then, there were no vaccines, no antiviral drugs or antibiotics. Prevention was limited to good hygiene, quarantine and face masks.

October 1918 was the worst month and marks when the disease finally reached Cincinnati.

On Oct. 5, the Cincinnati Board of Health voted unanimously to close all churches, schools, theaters and public meeting places until the danger of the epidemic had passed. Saloons stayed open but had to serve liquor in bottles only, to be taken home to drink.

“Cincinnati is endeavoring to prevent an epidemic of Spanish influenza,” Mayor John Galvin said. “There is no epidemic here. We are doing what other cities should have done – we are preventing.”

The precautions may have slowed the flu down, but didn’t stop it.

On Oct. 27, four weeks into the local epidemic, The Enquirer reported 395 deaths the previous week (150 was the normal death total for a week), 262 from the flu. More cases were reported daily. Thousands of children were orphaned.

“Twenty-five percent of the cases at the General Hospital have been fatal,” reported Dr. Walter E. List, the hospital superintendent. “We have been handicapped by the illness of nurses and attendants, but the nurses on duty have been working 14 to 16 hours a day since the epidemic started. Their sacrifice and self-denial have been marvelous.”

As the rate of new cases began to slow, the public became restless and protested the quarantine.

On Nov. 11, the day the armistice was signed ending World War I, the Board of Health agreed to lift the influenza restrictions.

More cases popped up among schoolchildren, so schools were closed again and children were restricted from theaters and streetcars until the epidemic finally passed.

Cincinnati Sanitary Bulletin reported 1,688 deaths of influenza or pneumonia in Cincinnati from September to December 1918, about 4 deaths per 1,000 population. Unlike most flu outbreaks, in which children and elderly are hardest hit, 64 percent of the local deaths were ages 20 to 40.

What is it like, this Spanish Flu?

Ask me, brother, for I’ve been through.

It is by Misery out of Despair;

It pulls your teeth and curls your hair;

It thins your blood and brays your bones,

And fills your craw with moans and groans,

And sometimes, maybe, you get well,

Some call it Flu – I call it hell!

– Mattoon Journal Gazette, Oct. 28, 1918

Sources: Influenza Encyclopedia (www.influenzaarchive.org), U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov), Cincinnati Sanitary Bulletin, Enquirer archives