1918 Flu Epidemic

Michael Worobey talks about the genesis of the 1918 Flue Epidemic . Worobey traces the history of the flu back to the Great Epizootic of 1872, where equines flu appeared in Toronto and spread throughout North American, then spread to chickens and turkeys. The disease, which was an H1N1 virus, eventually made its way to humans.

Worobey also determined that the aged in 1918 were infants in the 1840 H1N1 virus epidemic, and thus had antibodies in the 1918 epidemic.

-DD