okay so i get 15 points extra credit on my anatomy and physiology test if i get this right... thought i might ask for some help. :)

In 1918 there was a flu pandemic that killed 1/4 of the populuation of the united states and 1/5 of the worlds population. More people died from the flu then from World War I.
The flu was called "la grippe" and the deaths in europe started in madrid, the flu is said to have been from asia, and i read at the WHO's website it is said to have come from swine.

Most flus affect the young and old especially, because of their weakened immune systems. This flu affected people who were aged 20-40 the MOST.

this is my extra credit question, why were the hale and hearty, those aged 20-40 hit the hardest with this pandemic?

-my dad thinks the young might've things in their child bodies that protected them, like Thymus, and that the old had seen versions of this flu before and so werent as suseptible.
-and i cant help but to rule out that it could've been passed as an STD, but then why wouldnt the mothers have passed this infectous disease to their children?

Originally posted by turtle_o
why were the hale and hearty, those aged 20-40 hit the hardest with this pandemic?

-my dad thinks the young might've things in their child bodies that protected them, like Thymus, and that the old had seen versions of this flu before and so werent as suseptible.
-and i cant help but to rule out that it could've been passed as an STD, but then why wouldnt the mothers have passed this infectous disease to their children?

i think i saw a documentary on this on history channle during the summer "the doomsday flu"

the reason why i think it was was becuase of how the flu was created by the burning of two different types of manure which was certainly a cause of the epidemic and then the soldiers brought the flu over to europe so everyone eventually caught the flu originally was the soldiers and this flu was easier spread then other flu's and that was why it was so dangerous

i would say that it's untrue that old and the young were unaffected but what do i know? i think the stamping out of the flu came because people who survived had got an immune system aghainst this flu built up

don't know if that helps, probably doesn't

it isnt that the old and young didnt get sick and die from it as well... but the MOST who died from it were those aged 20-40.

it could be just as simple as the fact that there WERE more 20-40 year olds, and so they lost more numbers, but the proportion might be the same...

You may want to start with getting some facts straightened out.

Originally posted by turtle_o
okay so i get 15 points extra credit on my anatomy and physiology test if i get this right.

In 1918 there was a flu pandemic that killed 1/4 of the populuation of the united states and 1/5 of the worlds population.

You may not get brownie points, but check your teacher's math. The population of the USA was 100,000,000 around 1918 and the death toll was 600,000 that was generally attributed to the "Spanish Flu."

That means:

600,000/100,000,000 = 0.6% of the population was killed.

That is in stark contrast to 25.0% your teacher is telling you. Assuming that is actually what the teacher said, you should really challenge that significant inaccuracy. I think the error is that supposedly 25% of the population got this flu although only a very small percentage died from it.

i was reading the websites.... I'll check again, i thought the math was wrong too, but it sounded nice and dramatic, and it wasnt too pertinent to my real question anyways.

----but that isnt a pertinent fact, the question is, why did people from age 20-40 have the most deaths. I read that most flu death when graphed look like a U, with the middle ages having low deaths, in this case i was shaped like a W with the highest spike being ages 30-34, and the 2nd highest spike being 25-29.

Very interesting you should mention this. I just completed the book "Random Harvest" by James Hilton. The story begins on Armistace Day 1918. The main character escapes from a millitary hospital where he is being treated for amnesia and he suffers from the flu. The story describes how the killer flu of 1918 kills so many people, many of them soldiers.

i just guessed on the test, saying that the same amount of kids died as in a regular flu outbreak, and that the older than 40 people had an immunity to is, because there were flu outbreaks in the 1880's, and 1890's......so i just guessed that the 20-40 crowd just never saw anything like it, so they died.

*shrug* -wont find out the answer until next semester.