Etymologies
Front page of El Sol (Madrid), May 28, 1918: "The three-day fever. 80,000 infected in Madrid. H.M.
the king is sick."
This pandemic was known by many different names—some old, some new—depending on
place, time, and context. The etymology of alternative names historicises the scourge and its
effects on people who would only learn years later that invisible viruses caused influenza.[19]
This lack of scientific answers lead the Sierra Leone Weekly News (Freetown) to suggest a
biblical framing in July 1918, using an interrogative from Exodus 16 in ancient Hebrew:[a]
"One thing is for certain—the doctors are at present flabbergasted; and we suggest that rather
than calling the disease influenza they should for the present until they have it in hand, say
Man hu—'What is it?'"[21][22][23]
Descriptive names
Outbreaks of influenza-like illness were documented in 1916–17 at British military hospitals
in Étaples, France,[24] and just across the English Channel at Aldershot, England. Clinical
indications in common with the 1918 pandemic included rapid symptom progression to a
"dusky" heliotrope cyanosis of the face. This characteristic blue-violet cyanosis in expiring
patients lead to the name 'purple death'.[25][26][27]
The Aldershot physicians later wrote in The Lancet, "the influenza pneumococcal purulent
bronchitis we and others described in 1916 and 1917 is fundamentally the same condition as
the influenza of this present pandemic."[28] 'Purulent bronchitis' is not yet linked to the same
A/H1N1 virus,[29] but it may be a precursor.[28][30][31]
In 1918, 'epidemic influenza' (Italian: influenza, influence),[32] also known at the time as 'the
grip' (French: la grippe, grasp),[33] appeared in Kansas in the U.S. during late spring, and early
reports from Spain began appearing on May 21.[34][35] Reports from both places called it
'three-day fever' (fiebre de los tres días).[36][37][38]
The Times (London) front page June 25, 1918: "The Spanish Influenza"
Associative names
Many alternative names are exonyms in the paradigm of making new infectious diseases
seem foreign,[39][40][41] a form of xenophobia.[42][43][44] This pattern was observed even before
1889–1890 pandemic, also known as the 'Russian flu', where the Russians already called
epidemic influenza the 'Chinese catarrh', the Germans called it the 'Russian pest', while the
Italians in turn called it the 'German disease'.[45][46] These epithets were re-used in the 1918
pandemic, along with new ones.[47]
Advertisement in The Times June 28, 1918 for Formamint tablets to prevent 'Spanish influenza'
'Spanish' influenza
Outside Spain, the disease was soon misnamed 'Spanish influenza'.[48][49] In a June 2, 1918
The Times of London dispatch titled, "The Spanish Epidemic," a correspondent in Madrid
reported over 100,000 victims of, "The unknown disease…clearly of a gripal character,"
without referring to "Spanish influenza" directly.[50] Three weeks later The Times reported
that, "Everybody thinks of it as the 'Spanish' influenza to-day."[51] Three days after that an
advertisement appeared in The Times for Formamint tablets to prevent "Spanish influenza".[52]
[53]
When it reached Moscow Pravda announced, "Ispánka (The Spanish Lady) is in town,"
making 'the Spanish lady' another common name.[54]
The outbreak did not originate in Spain (see below),[55] but reporting did, due to wartime
censorship in belligerent nations. Spain was a neutral country unconcerned with appearances
of combat readiness, and without a wartime propaganda machine to prop up morale;[56][57] so
its newspapers freely reported epidemic effects, including King Alfonso XIII's illness,
making Spain the apparent locus of the epidemic.[58] The censorship was so effective that
Spain's health officials were unaware its neighboring countries were similarly affected.[59]
In an October 1918 "Madrid Letter" to the Journal of the American Medical Association, a
Spanish official protested, "we were surprised to learn that the disease was making ravages in
other countries, and that people there were calling it the 'Spanish grip'. And wherefore
Spanish? …this epidemic was not born in Spain, and this should be recorded as a historic
vindication."[60] But before this letter could be published, The Serbian Newspaper (Corfu)
said, "Various countries have been assigning the origin of this imposing guest to each other
for quite some time, and at one point in time they agreed to assign its origin to the kind and
neutral Spain…"[61]
