![]() ![]() She writes that the British government essentially told its subjects that it was their patriotic duty to “carry on” as normal and make sure the cogs of the economy continued to whir. ![]() It is a theme that Catharine Arnold picks up in Pandemic 1918, her grisly account of Spanish flu. ![]() “It was the closing months of the war, a lot of people were dying, a few flu deaths here and there didn’t make much difference,” says Dr Honigsbaum. Worldwide, between 50 million and 100 million died – more than the number killed by the bombs and bullets of the First World War. In startlingly honest language, Sir Arthur told the conference: “The relentless needs of warfare justify the risks of spreading infection and the associated creation of a more virulent type of disease.”Īccording to Dr Honigsbaum, the “carry on” advice may well have been responsible for thousands of the 250,000 Britons who ultimately died in the Spanish flu pandemic. Instead, Sir Arthur told the Royal Society of Medicine that Britain’s “major duty” was to “carry on” largely as normal, “even when risk to health and life is involved”. Men and women needed to return to the factories day after day if Germany was to be defeated, officials believed, and so the memorandum was buried. It is traced back to comments made in 1918 by Sir Arthur Newsholme, Britain’s then senior medical officer, in response to the outbreak of Spanish flu, a deadly strain of the H1N1 virus first spotted in late 1917.īy late 1918, ministers were aware of the horrific potential impact of the virus, which was known to turn its victims’ bodies blue and black before death, and so drafted a memorandum which advised Britons to isolate themselves at home if they were sick, and avoid any public gatherings.īut the nation was also facing its final stretch of the First World War, which had already claimed hundreds of thousands of British lives, and Sir Arthur worried that telling workers to stay at home could hinder Britain's war effort. But according to Dr Mark Honigsbaum, medical historian and author of The Pandemic Century, the language of 'carry on' originates not from World War Two but World War One. ![]()
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