North Dakotans took many steps to fight the 1918 flu pandemic. Bismarck had a mask mandate for waitresses and other food handlers. Schools and businesses around the state closed – some for months. There was even a vaccine, though it turned out to be useless.
A U.S. Public Health Service ad said: “Coughs and sneezes spread diseases as dangerous as poison gas shells” – referring to the poison gas being used in World War I.
Bismarck’s city health officer issued instructions that included wearing masks, washing hands, keeping teeth clean, and opening windows.
Some newspaper ads recommended oranges, lemons, grapefruit and even raw or cooked onions to prevent or treat the flu. The Jamestown Weekly Alert recommended a treatment that included “a good sweating” and gargling with antiseptic. Physicians thought heavy rain or cold weather would stop the epidemic.
An eccentric North Dakota Supreme Court justice pestered the attorney general about booze for treating the flu, but at the time, North Dakota had a new law banning liquor from being imported into the state. Justice James Robinson wrote: “When a person is taken with the flu, he is as a person bitten by a rattlesnake. He can drink liquor like water until he had had enough, because one poison kills another. Drink ‘til you feel happy. Go to bed and sweat. Take a quinine pill with every two or three swallows of the good medicine. Eat plenty of good steak or roast beef, and then like a Christian scientist, you may order the flu to go to the hot place.”
Attorney General Bill Langer allowed whiskey and brandy to be brought into North Dakota for medicinal purposes, but only registered pharmacists could dole it out.
On this date in 1919, the Grand Forks city health officer began an anti-spitting campaign in an effort to prevent a new surge of the flu. He prepared signs to post around town, and said “this was one of the most important measures which could be taken to prevent the disease as it is largely by promiscuous spitting that it is spread.”
The pandemic lingered into 1920, and by one estimate, killed more than 5,100 North Dakotans.
Dakota Datebook by Jack Dura
Sources:
Jamestown Weekly Alert. 1918, October 10. Pages 5, 6
The Bismarck Tribune. 1918, October 14. Page 5
The Bismarck Tribune. 1918, October 15. Page 3
The Hope Pioneer. 1918, October 17. Page 2
The Bowbells Tribune. 1918, October 25. Page 5
The Bismarck Tribune. 1918, October 26. Page 4
Grand Forks Herald. 1918, October 29. Page 1
Grand Forks Herald. 1919, September 2. Page 8
North Dakota Department of Health. (2009). How you can be prepared for a flu pandemic: North Dakota planning and preparedness packet. health.nd.gov/media/1102/panflu-kit-final.pdf
