JUST IN TIME
The Latest on the Flu:
}} A Snapshot of the 1918 Outbreak On November 1, 1918, five women boarded a train in Lindsay bound for Oshawa. Etta Graham, Aileen Hughes and Elsie Sutcliffe were members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), a corps of nursing aides organized by the Canadian Red Cross and the St. John Ambulance. The VAD was instrumental in saving lives during the First World War, and the sight of a big red cross emblazoned across the side of an ambulance piloted by VAD personnel had become one of the most famous symbols of health care during that conflict and during the subsequent flu outbreak — much as the N95 face mask has in 2020. Joined by two nurses from Ross Memorial Hospital, Etta, Aileen and Elsie were en route to a city beset by the ravages of the influenza pandemic, often referred to as the Spanish Flu. We can just about imagine the conversation taking place in that railway carriage as it rattles its way across a countryside resplendent in the colours of autumn… “Well girls, what’s the latest on the flu?” Aileen asks. Her colleagues are engrossed as Elsie reads from a newspaper purchased from the news butcher making his way through the train. “Fenelon Falls is stepping up its measures,” she notes. “‘The Board of Health has issued orders that churches, schools, and pool rooms are to be closed on account of the influenza epidemic until further notice...’”
IAN McKECHNIE
“It’s about time, too,” Aileen interrupts. “Why they didn’t do that a few weeks back is quite beyond me. Go on — what else does it say?” Elsie clears her throat and continues. “‘While cases of ‘flu’ in the village are fortunately few and far between, the surrounding country contains a large number of cases, some of them being of quite a serious nature, and the local doctors are kept busy attending them.’” “Few and far between,” Aileen repeats rhetorically. “The cases would have been fewer and farther between had ‘few and far between’ been the personal motto of every citizen.
Red Cross ambulance, ca. 1918
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