Thread by @ElonBachman

1\ Just went down a rabbit hole to understand why the 1918 Spanish Flu was so deadly, and it's weirder than I could have imagined

Caveat: I have no expertise here, and it's possible the study I'm quoting from is flawed

h/t @PdxSag cc @quirkyllama

academic.oup.com/cid/article/49…

2\ In 1918, aspirin was a recently off-patent wonder drug that was taking the world by storm

The non-linearity of aspirin toxicity would not be known until the 1960s

3\ One of the mysteries of the 1918 Spanish Flu was why so many young, healthy soldiers died

Well, apparently the army was one of the most enthusiastic prescribers of the new wonder drug

4\ Common dosage regimens amounted to the equivalent of over *90 ASPIRIN TABLETS PER DAY* (assuming 325mg per modern tablet)

5\ You have probably seen enough daytime TV to know what happens if someone swallows an ENTIRE BOTTLE OF ASPIRIN every day for several days

This may explain another Spanish Flu mystery: why were healthy people dying from massive, diverse organ failure 48 hours after diagnosis?

6\ How much worse were things in other countries, where the new wonder drug was also widely available and where western medicine was looked on with even more wonderment and employed with even less care?