The morgues were packed almost to the ceiling with bodies stacked one on top of another. Navy nurse Josie Brown, who served at Naval Hospital in Great Lakes, Illinois in 1918, later described what happened there and in many hospitals around the country: The US Navy was forced to rely on quarantine or infectious disease stations as brave doctors, hospital corpsmen, and nurses cared for the daily needs of the patients. Navy medical professionals were among those who were overwhelmed trying to fight this virus. The death rate was greatest among ages 15 to 40. Mysteriously, it killed more young than old.
Lungs filled with fluid and their skin became markedly discolored from the lack of oxygen. Spanish Flu victims suffered massive pneumonia and fatal pulmonary complications: they literally drowned in their own body fluids. However, all this changed in 1918, when a particularly virulent form of influenza - the so-called Spanish Flu - appeared, causing more deaths (over 50 million) than had resulted from the entire First World War which lasted four years. In fact, this is probably no different from what our American ancestors encountered before World War I.
We are all familiar with the tell-tale signs of the flu: sneezing, coughing, aching, and overall physical weakness.
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