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The Spanish Flu Epidemic
If you're worried about the possibility of a coming bird flu epidemic,you can take
comfort in the fact that humanity has survived a similar influenza epidemic in the past.
Starting its rounds at the end of World War!,the 1918 flu killed an estimated 50 million
people.
Popularly known as the Spanish Flu,this type of influenza was far worse than your
common cold.Normally,influenza only kills those who are more vulnerable to disease,
such as newborns,the old or the sick.However,the Spanish Flu was prone to kill the
young and healthy.Often it would disable its victims in hours;within a day,they would be
dead,typically from extreme cases of pneumonia（肺炎）.
The Spanish Flu was quite nasty-fast-spreading and deadly. It managed to spread
across the globe,devastating the world.Then suddenly,after two years ravaging（蹂躏）
the Earth,it disappeared as quickly as it had arisen.
Despite its nickname,the Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain.Its true origins are
unknown.Some believe it started in US forts and then spread to Europe as America joined
the war;others think that it populated the trenches of the English and the French and
eventually broke out in 1918.Regardless of where it started,eventually a fifth of the world
population suffered the disease,with a global mortality rate（死亡率）estimated at 2. 5% of
the population.
Modernity was partly to blame for the quick spread of the disease.It passed throughout
the world on trade routes and shipping lines.It hit Northern America,Europe,Asia,Africa
and the South Pacific.The war did not help at all一the movement of supplies and troops
aided the spread of the Spanish Flu,as well as the trench warfare:!magine the speed at
which a virus can spread in a crowded ditch.The fast emergence of the virus in the
trenches caused some soldiers to believe that the Spanish Flu was a new form of biological
warfare.
Luckily,the Spanish Flu simply vanished by 1920.It is believed the flu simply ran out
of fuel to spread.

The Spanish Flu posed a greater threat to the old and the sick.
A:Right
B:Wrong
C:Not mentioned