The current concern about the ongoing impact of H1N1 flu is fully justified. There is no cause for panic but careful, studied approaches to the problem are required.

Countless educated people in many fields are working both here and abroad trying to prevent a deadly pandemic, and various members of the Kansas University faculty and staff are doing all they can to help. They always have. The appeal to KU for good judgment and management is clear. Many people at KU gather in large groups quite often and the chances for spreading flu strains are heightened. It is not likely that any laboratory, here or elsewhere, will discover a quick-fix for this onslaught.

It is unlikely, of course, that we will see anything like the 1918 period when flu ravaged the world killing an estimated 37 million. The United States had more than 400,000 deaths, a total near that of the U.S. fatalities in World War II. In Kansas, some 12,000 fatalities were registered.

KU was closed for several weeks in October and November 1918, and more than 1,000 students and faculty were hit by the notorious “Spanish flu.” There were 24 deaths recorded on the campus. No figure is available for Lawrence in general, but many a local graveyard includes numerous non-KU flu victims from 1918.

Authorities looked to KU in 1918 and are doing so again in 2009-10 to try to help solve the swine flu puzzle. So did a call for help go out to the university in 1909 when still another health menace was beginning to prowl through the society. Sadly, neither KU nor any other source could suddenly stem the flu tide of 1918. The university also was unable to deal with a growing problem that was reflected in the Lawrence Daily World of Sept. 22, 1909:

“The KU bacteriology department has been called by state health director Dr. S.C. Crumbine to help solve a most mysterious disease which has been prevalent in northeast Kansas, leaving death in its wake. Thirteen deaths out of 40 cases is the record made by the disease which has made its appearance in Norton and Decatur counties in the last 30 days. It is known as infantile paralysis but does not confine itself to children. Two of the 13 who died are adults and they died within 48 hours after they were attacked. Victims who do not die are often left paralyzed. The university has vowed to try to help.”

Consider the devastation this disease, polio, caused before the Salk and Sabin vaccines were developed and made available in the 1950s. While the flu epidemics such as the one in 1918 came and went, polio continued its reign of terror for well over 60 years.

Until 1894, when Vermont reported 132 cases, polio was fairly rare. Between 1905 and 1909, however, the United States reported two-thirds of the world’s 8,000 known cases. Many can recall the “summer fears” they and their families had due to polio and how it kept them in constant turmoil, with no evidence of a prevention or cure in sight.

The world finally benefited from U.S. research. It all reminds us that despite the efforts of scientific resources such as those at KU, there almost always is some other health predator lurking in our background.