Tag Archives: influenza

  • Medicine at Michigan

    “This Infection, Like War, Kills the Young”

    As the 1918 influenza pandemic circled the globe, U-M Medical School Dean Victor Vaughan was called in to help unravel the mystery of the deadly illness.

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  • Michigan Today image of Ann Arbor mural with face masks
    Michigan Today

    The idea to ‘flatten the curve’

    Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many parallels have been drawn between this pandemic and the Great Influenza of the early 20th century. Using the 1918-19 findings from the Center for the History of Medicine, the Center for Disease Control incorporated plans to “flatten the curve” of COVID-19.

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  • Michigan Today

    Two Weeks in 1918

    An unfamiliar strain of influenza reached Ann Arbor some time in the final days of September 1918. The early symptoms felt like a common cold plus “more marked irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose, mouth, and throat.” By October 1, 10 men and two women in their 20s and 30s, none of them University of Michigan students, had been hospitalized.

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  • Michigan Today

    The First Flu Shot

    U-M scientist Thomas Francis broke new ground in the fight against influenza with his work on the first flu shot.

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