The Sphinx of Epidemic Diseases Pt. 2

The "Russian influenza" pandemic of the 1890s has long baffled medical historians. Whether or not it was due to a coronavirus, we can learn much from studying the Victorian response to the disease.

In Part 1 of this two-part post on the parallels between Covid-19 and the “Russian influenza” pandemic of the 1890s, I described new molecular evidence, suggesting that the Russian flu may actually have been due to a bovine coronavirus. I also summarised epidemiological evidence that, rather than originating in St Petersburg, in Russia, or Bukhara, in Uzbekistan, the pandemic may have begun in the Kirghiz Steppes, an area of arid grasslands twice the size of California in northern Kazakhstan which is home to large herds of cattle, as well as horses and camels.

I also described how, like SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, the Russian influenza had a case fatality rate of around one percent, and was particularly deadly to individuals with pre-existing health conditions. Some patients also reported a loss of taste and smell - a hallmark of infection with SARS-CoV-2 - and peculiar nervous afflictions, such as psychoses and extreme fatigue states, reminiscent of long Covid.

In this second post, drawing on my research of Victorian medical journals, illustrated newspapers and periodicals from the period, I go on to explore these strange neurological symptoms in more detail, and how, in an era before vaccines and anti-viral drugs, the best doctors could offer patients was palliative care.

Nor, at a time when most medics subscribed to miasma theory (the idea that diseases were the result of poisonous exhalations from the earth carried on the wind) was any consideration given to social distancing or the adoption of face masks. Instead, doctors emphasized the importance of getting plenty of bed-rest and the value of cultivating a positive state of mind, lest fear of the disease become the “mother of infection”.

Finally, I describe the women’s rights campaigner, Josephine Butler’s, protracted battle with the Russian influenza, which afflicted her household throughout the 1890s, and the association between the pandemic and elevated cases of suicide.