Birds, Pigs and Silent VIP ’s

It has become a tragic fact that every year the flu season brings an immense burden on health care services and now has dozens of subtypes cataloged, from ‘swine flu’ to ‘bird flu’ to ‘Asian flu’ and beyond. Typically, between late Fall and early Spring, over the last ten years, the United States alone has suffered hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths across all ages [1]. But shortly after the turn of the century the ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic of 1918 to 1920 was different in the extreme, and like every disease or virus did not discriminate on age, gender, race, even species, or, indeed, fame. This year makes the centennial anniversary of the pandemics end so along with the estimated 50 million deaths let us remember how we are all equal in the face of such viruses. Rose Cleveland – sister of President Grover Cleveland, who acted as ‘first lady’ to her bachelor brother – was one of approximately 150 famous people that perished in the ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic. Perhaps the best-known victims at the time were Francisco Rodrigues Alves (Brazilian President-Elect) and Louis Botha (President of South Africa), but no less than ten shining stars of the silent movie era are known to have also died during the deadly outbreak. True Boardman, who appeared in 137 films in just an 8-year career and his son (also named True Boardman) went on to co-star in films with Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. William Courtleigh, Jr. who pas...
Source: GIDEON blog - Category: Databases & Libraries Authors: Tags: General Source Type: blogs