BOB MCCRACKEN Nye County History Advertisement

Pandemic viral disease is back in the headlines.

This time it's not Ebola, SARS, or bird flu, but swine flu.

The seemingly infinitely resourceful flu virus has recombined using genetic material from the North American and Eurasian swine flu, North American bird flu and North American human flu viruses. Only time will tell how bad it will get.

No vaccine for this disease is available at this time. Although a quick cure is likely available for swine flu and most other viruses, it is not widely accepted or even known by most medical and public health authorities. (More on that later.) A couple of drugs will lessen the symptoms of this swine flu, unless the virus develops resistance to the medications.

The first influenza pandemic that we know about occurred in 1889 and subsequent pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957, and 1968. The one in 1918 was by far the worst. Known as the Spanish flu, it is believed to have killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, or more than double the number killed in World War I. Up to one billion people, half the world's population at the time, are thought to have contracted the disease.

Some say the Spanish flu began in Austria in the spring of 1917. Other research suggests that it originated at Fort Riley, Kansas, in March 1918. Flu pandemics appear to come in waves. Spanish Flu started out as relatively mild; then, in August 1918, the virus suddenly turned more virulent, with the enhanced strain appearing at the same time in the U.S., France, and Africa. Then in early 1919 it became more mild. The pandemic was over by June 1920.

In the United States, 28 percent of the population is estimated to have contracted Spanish flu and between 500,000 and 675,000 Americans died. As many as 17 million people may have died in India. In the Fiji Islands, 14 percent of the population died in only two weeks; 22 percent died in Western Samoa.

We don't seem to have a strong cultural memory of Spanish flu, apparently because it occurred in the context of the devastation of the First World War.

One characteristic of the Spanish flu was that it hit vigorous younger people in the prime of life harder. The explanation is that the more vigorous have a more active immune system and that a strong immune response by the victim produces immune byproducts that overwhelm the lungs.

In Tonopah

Tonopah was hit hard by the Spanish flu. Beginning in October 2005, Bill Roberts, former co-owner and publisher of the Tonopah Times-Bonanza and Goldfield News, wrote a fine series of articles on the Spanish flu's presence in Tonopah.

The first cases of Spanish flu were reported in Tonopah in late October 1918. By Oct. 29, 19 cases of influenza had been reported by local doctors. Local officials were determined to take strong steps to help prevent the disease's spread.

Nye County commissioners, local doctors, and the district attorney agreed on a strategy. They passed an ordinance requiring "mine workers wear gauze masks to and from work, in change rooms, and while entering and leaving the mines."

Miners were allowed to take off their masks if the wearing interfered with work. The mask rule was also waived for miners' showering. The ordinance also required that every person appearing in public wear a mask. Those not wearing masks would be fined $5, with the proceeds going to the Red Cross. Lodges and theaters were to be closed. Schools were closed indefinitely and no public meetings of "any nature" were to be held. All workers in businesses and offices were required to wear masks while at work.

Chairs were ordered removed from all saloons, brokerage offices and other places where people congregated.

Local dry good stores reported the sale of "enormous quantities of gauze and cheesecloth to persons making their own masks. The drug stores were kept busy supplying disenfectants," wrote the Tonopah Times, Oct. 29, 1918.

That same article on the Spanish flu concluded by saying, "The people of Tonopah have never been known to do things by halves, and they are taking up the fight on influenza in a way that must bring big results. There must be no slackers, as this is considered one of the most serious problems that has ever confronted the people of the camp."

On Nov. 8, 1918, the following appeared in bold print in the Tonopah Daily Times: "The man who, through neglect, spreads contagion and causes death is a criminal and should be so treated."

By Nov. 14, 1918, just three weeks after the first cases appeared, 32 people in Tonopah had died from Spanish flu. By Nov. 17, there was fear that the disease had spread to Round Mountain. By the end of the month, the epidemic in Tonopah had begun to wane.

The Spanish flu pandemic produced a serious shortage of caskets throughout the county. Reno ran out. Tonopah undertaker Frank J. Cavanaugh was "particularly fortunate to secure enough to meet all needs." He even supplied caskets to Mina and Luning.

The following verse was popular in the days of the pandemic:

I had a little bird,

Its name was Enza.

I opened the window,

And in-flew-Enza.

The cure

While we hope and pray that modern medicine's response to flu or any other disease would be wholly rational and scientific, sadly, this is not the case. Rationalism and science do not necessarily top the list of modern medicine's priorities.

Doctors and other health professionals are, after all, human beings, and consequently, like the rest of us, are subject to all the foibles of human thinking and behavior. The treatment of disease by human beings in the distant past began as a part of religious practices, and to this day the healthcare profession has practitioners who are too much disposed to act like priests, dispensing ideology rather than behaving as professionals thoroughly committed to science.

It's highly likely that a simple cure for most viral diseases, including polio, hepatitis, rabies, measles and diphtheria, not to mention flu, is readily available.

This cure is safe and inexpensive. Moreover, it is effective in treating a variety of other maladies, including poisoning by snakebite, spider bite, stingrays, and threats to health from poisonous mushrooms, carbon monoxide, barbiturates and other substances.

Our understanding of this cure has been growing since the 1940s. Yet the government spends no money doing research on it and most physicians know nothing about it. If you ask the average physician about it, he or she will look at you as if you're crazy.

However, there are doctors around the world who cure disease with this simple treatment every single day.

Why isn't this cure more widely used? you ask. There are three big reasons: 1. This cure doesn't seem to fit within modern medicine's conception of what the truth is. 2. There is no money in it for the big drug companies -- and making money, sadly, dominates modern medicine. 3. The doctor might have to give the patient more than the few minutes (usually two to six) the patient is normally allotted.

What is this cure? It consists of injections of up to 10 grams of vitamin C directly into the patient's vein, or infusions of larger doses in the vein by drip.

There is every evidence that the flu can be cured overnight in this way. I, and untold numbers of others, have experienced this. So much for pandemic flu, wouldn't you suppose?

It's not that simple. Finding a cure and getting the cure accepted by medical practitioners and the public are two different things.

For example, scurvy, a deadly disease caused by a shortage of vitamin C in the diet, was the scourge of seafaring nations from the 1500s until the 1800s, killing sailors by the tens of thousands. In 1747, Dr. James Lind, a young British ship's doctor, scientifically demonstrated that scurvy could be cured by adding a small amount of lime juice (yep, vitamin C) to the diet. He published a book on it in 1753.

Lime juice was not added to British sailors' diets until 1795, and it was not made official by the British Admiralty until 1884.

Preventing and curing scurvy with citrus juice was a new concept that didn't fit with the Admiralty's old way of thinking. They were plugged into Aristotle's 2,000-year-old model of how the body worked. Moreover -- and this is important -- Lind was not highborn and, though a ship's doctor, enjoyed relatively low status within the profession.

Social status is very important in determining whether or not one's research finds are accepted. When it comes to using injectable vitamin C to treat disease, it is, as Yogi Berra would say, "Déjá vu all over again."

If you want to know more about using injectable vitamin C to treat disease and perhaps prepare yourself for a pandemic, I have just published the second edition of a book on the subject titled "Injectable Vitamin C and the Treatment of Viral and Other Diseases: A Compilation of Pioneering Literature." It can be downloaded at no cost from our Web site, www.injectablevitaminc.com. The book contains 36 articles written by physicians and healthcare professionals from around the world who have used injectable vitamin C to successfully treat a variety of viral diseases and other ailments.