Raiderlegend Repost: Plague - Flu - Influenza

 

April 04, 2020

Soon the plague was everywhere. And no one was safe.

The sickness preyed on the young and the healthy. One day you are fine, strong and invulnerable. You might be busy at work in your office. Or maybe you are knitting a scarf for the brave troops fighting the war to end all wars. Or maybe you are a soldier reporting for basic training your first time away from home and family.

You might notice a dull headache. your eyes might start to burn. you start to shiver and you will take to your bed, curling up in a ball. But no amount of blankets can keep you warm. you fall into a restless sleep, dreaming the distorted nightmares of delirium as your fever climbs. And when you drift out of sleep, into a sort of semi-consciousness, your muscles will ache and your head will throb and you will somehow know that, step by step, as your body feebly cries out "no," you are moving steadily toward death.

It may take a few days, it may take a few hours, but there is nothing that can stop the disease's progress. Doctors and nurses have learned to spot the signs. Your face turns a dark brownish purple. You start to cough up blood. Your feet turn black. Finally, as the end nears, you frantically gasp for breath. A blood-tinged saliva bubbles out of your mouth. You die - by drowning, actually - as your lungs fill with reddish fluid.

And when a doctor does an autopsy, he will observe your lungs lying heavy and sodden in your chest, engorged with a thin bloody liquid, useless, like slabs of liver. 

excerpt from the book "Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It."