By the end of the first week of October, these nurses would see on average 20-30 cases in a day, with the highest at 40 cases in a single day. Visiting nurses from the Visiting Nurse Society of Philadelphia, whichВ provided nursing care in the home, took on some of the earliest cases of the flu and were overwhelmed before the Liberty Bond Parade. Clean linens and soups were used as quickly as they were made. Fresh laundry, water, and fluids and food were critical to combating the flu, but with so many patients it was difficult to obtain supplies. There werenвЂ™t enough hands to help each patient- some died within 12 hours before being seen by a nurse or a doctor.

Nurses were overwhelmed with numbers of patients, either at the hospital, at home, or in the field, yet they continued to do their job in the face of overwhelming numbers. Nursing care was critical in the day-to-day battle against influenza.

Doctors had few resources and few medicines to assist at the time though they did their best. More shocking was these were young men and women suffering from these terrible symptoms. However,В this strainВ struck more severely and soon some patients turned blue at the fingers, arms or face, had trouble breathing, and even bled. Thousands of patients reported the classic symptoms of influenza- fever, aches, sore throat, and headache. Philadelphians could walk down the street seeing and smelling dozens and dozens of bodies. Without embalming, the bodiesВ began to decay bodies oozed and blood would flow out. Rooms, if there were any to spare, were sectioned off when family members couldnвЂ™t arrange for or find someone to take care of the body. Bodies piled up in hospitals, on porches, on the streets, and in the home. For some families, it was easier for them to dig a grave themselves than wait for someone else.Дuring the height of the flu the city established 5 additional temporary morgues, but even that wasnвЂ™t enough. Exacerbating the overload, besides the rapid influx of the dead, was the lack of available undertakers and grave diggers. It was quickly overrun, with nearly 200 bodies crammed into every available space. The city morgue was designed to hold 36 bodies. The rapid rate of death, and the fact there were so many dying, meant the city and itвЂ™s undertakers and morgue couldnвЂ™t keep up with dead bodies.

People isolated themselves, not speaking to anyone, avoiding crowds, not having anywhere to go but stay at home, where there may be people sick or dead. Despite the numerous deaths though, many more survived and recovered from the illness.ДЄs influenza spread, so too did fear. Despite declarations on October 4 thВ and 5 th, the peak of the pandemic didnвЂ™t happen until the week of the 19 thВ when 4,597 died from influenza or pneumonia. Yet the population continued to get sick. For over three weeks, influenza paralyzed the city. People who were healthy a couple days ago were fighting for their lives, some dying within a day of contracting influenza. Every hospital bed in 31 hospitals were filled. Within 10 days the city went from 2 deaths and hundreds ill to hundreds dead each day and hundreds of thousands ill. In an average week, 485 died from all causes. In a single day, 759 people died from the pandemic alone. The daily death toll from influenza alone in Philadelphia would exceed the cityвЂ™s average weekly death toll from all causes. Philadelphia had one of the highest death rates in the country, 4 times higher than Boston. In Philadelphia over 12,000 people would die In the United States 25 million people were infected with influenza, about 25% of the population, and would kill 675,000. It would kill an estimated 50 million people world-wide. Ordinary flu has a higher death rate in young children and older adults this strain of influenza caused a spike in young adults contracting and dying from the disease. This strain caused tremendous stressВ on the body, had a higher rate of death, and was atypically seen more in young adults than in the rest of the population. During its second wave in late summer, doctors quickly noted it was different than the normal seasonal flu, evenВ at times misdiagnosing it. The 1918 influenza virus, erroneously known as Spanish Flu, presented first in late spring.

Spanish flu timeline