In reading the terrific book “The Great Influenza,” the author traces the 1918 flu pandemic to the plains of Kansas, then spread to an army base. It killed 50-60 million people worldwide. For some reason it wasn’t called “the Kansas Flu.”
There’s obviously much more to the story, and to “why” it was called the Spanish flu, but suffice to say the Spanish press, with Spain “neutral” in WWI, were not influenced by political decision-making and censorship, and they were the first to honestly report the virus.
BTW, while it’s hard to condense the recap of a 400 pg book on Twitter, I’d highly recommend this work, as it’s a riveting story of both the missteps in treating a disease and a history of American medicine.
