1918 letter describing Influenza
I've treated countless patients with #COVID in NYC and Arizona and I have NEVER seen anything like this deadly virus. 100 years ago during the 1918 pandemic, Dr. Norman Roy Grist describes the SAME hypoxia & respiratory distress in influenza!

In September of 1918, soldiers at an army base near Boston suddenly began to die from influenza. As the virus spread across the country, hospitals became quickly overfilled, and city officials dug mass graves.
https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/flu-epidemic-begins-in-boston.html

This is a letter written by doctor, Norman Roy Grist, stationed at Camp Devens, a military base just west of Boston, to a friend, and fellow physician in 1918. He describes the conditions of the camp as influenza was spreading.

"These men start with what appears to be an attack of la grippe or influenza, and when brought to the hospital they very rapidly develop the most viscous type of pneumonia that has ever been seen."

"Two hours after admission they have the mahogany spots over the cheek bones, and a few hours later you can begin to see the cyanosis extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish the coloured men from the white."

"It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, and it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate. It is horrible. One can stand it to see one, two or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies sort of gets on your nerves."

Dr. Grist's frustration of being doctor and not having a treatment to save your patients resonated with me, "It is horrible. One can stand it to see one, two or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies sort of gets on your nerves."

In 1918, influenza presented in a very similar manner to #COVID19 with shortness of breath, cyanosis, hypoxia then rapid decline. If history doesn't repeat then it often rhymes. Let's learn from the past, so we don't repeat the same mistakes. #MaskUp and #StayHome