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The Battle Begins

People did not begin to fully understand what caused

influenza until the early 1900s, when a deadly strain
spread across the world. The 1918 pandemic caused

so many people to die that medical science began a
dedicated effort to learn more about this enemy.

Searching for the Virus

In 1918, most scientists

believed that influenza was
caused by bacteria. Bacteria are
single-celled organisms that

can cause disease. However,
the scientists and doctors had
not been able to find identical
bacteria in samples taken from
a range of flu patients. So, they

started to search instead for
something they called a virus.

In the early 1930s, Richard
Shope, a doctor from Iowa,
isolated, or separated, the
flu virus from swine, or
pigs, infected with a highly

Without contagious flu-like disease.
medicines to help The disease symptoms were so
them, U.S. soldiers similar to human influenza that
tried gargling with salt
and water to prevent it was named swine influenza.
influenza during the
1918 pandemic.

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