1889–1890 pandemic
The 1889–1890 pandemic, often referred to as the "Asiatic flu"[1] or "Russian flu", was a worldwide respiratory viral pandemic. It was the last great pandemic of the 19th century, and is among the deadliest pandemics in history.[2][3] The pandemic killed about 1 million people out of a world population of about 1.5 billion (0.067% of population).[4][5] The most reported effects of the pandemic took place from October 1889 to December 1890, with recurrences in March to June 1891, November 1891 to June 1892, the northern winter of 1893–1894, and early 1895.
"Russian influenza" redirects here. For the flu outbreak in 1977, see 1977 Russian flu. For other uses, see Russian flu (disambiguation).1889–1890 pandemic
Influenza or coronavirus disease (uncertain)
A/H3N8, A/H2N2, or coronavirus OC43 (uncertain)
Worldwide
Bukhara, Russian Empire
1889–1890
300–900 million (estimate)
1 million (estimate)
According to researchers' estimates, excess mortality from Russian influenza in the Russian Empire for the period 1889–1890 could be from 60,000 to 90,000 people, with lethality from the virus, a little more than 0.2%.[6]
Although contemporaries described the pandemic as influenza and 20th-century scholars identified several influenza strains as the possible pathogen, several authors from the early 2020s suggest that it may have been caused by human coronavirus OC43.[7][8][9][10]
Responses[edit]
Medical treatment[edit]
There was no standard treatment of flu; quinine and phenazone were used, as well as small doses of strychnine and larger ones of whisky and brandy, and as cheaper treatments linseed, salt and warm water, and glycerin.[12] Many people also thought that fasting would 'starve' the fever, based on the belief that the body would not produce as much heat with less food; this was in fact poor medical advice.[12] Furthermore, many doctors still believed in the miasma theory of disease rather than infectious spread;[12] for example, notable professors of the University of Vienna, Hermann Nothnagel and Otto Kahler considered that the disease was not contagious.[12]
Public health[edit]
US public health departments did little prevention in advance, even though they knew through transoceanic telegraph cable reports, that the Russian influenza was on its way.[19]
A result of the Asiatic flu in Malta is that influenza became for the first time a compulsorily notifiable illness.[20]
Identification of virus responsible[edit]
Influenza virus[edit]
Researchers have tried for many years to identify the subtypes of Influenza A responsible for the 1889–1890, 1898–1900 and 1918 epidemics.[21][22][23] Initially, this work was primarily based on "seroarcheology"—the detection of antibodies to influenza infection in the sera of elderly people—and it was thought that the 1889–1890 pandemic was caused by Influenza A subtype H2, the 1898–1900 epidemic by subtype H3, and the 1918 pandemic by subtype H1.[24] With the confirmation of H1N1 as the cause of the 1918 flu pandemic following identification of H1N1 antibodies in exhumed corpses,[24] reanalysis of seroarcheological data suggested Influenza A subtype H3 (possibly the H3N8 subtype) as a more likely cause for the 1889–1890 pandemic.[11][24][25] This view is corroborated by converging seroarcheological and mortality data. In blood sera collected in 1956–1957, birth cohorts likely exposed early in life to the 1889–1890 pandemic had the highest percentages of detectable antibodies against the H3 strain that was later responsible for the 1968 pandemic. Correspondingly, excess mortality decreased sharply during that pandemic for these cohorts, who were 78 years old or older at the time.[26]
[edit]
After the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, virologists started sequencing human and animal coronaviruses. A comparison of two virus strains in the Betacoronavirus 1 species bovine coronavirus and human coronavirus OC43 indicated that the two had a most recent common ancestor in the late 19th century, with several methods yielding most probable dates around 1890. The authors speculated that an introduction of the former strain to the human population, rather than influenza, might have caused the 1889 epidemic.[22] A Belgian team performed a similar analysis of OC43, identifying a crossover date in the late 1800s.[9]
In 2021, examination of contemporary medical reports noted that the pandemic's clinical manifestations resembled those of COVID-19 rather than influenza, with notable similarities including multisystem disease, loss of taste and smell perception, central nervous system symptoms and sequelae similar to long COVID.[7][10][9] Other scientists have pointed to the fact the mortality curve for Russian Flu is J-shaped, as found in COVID-19, with little mortality in the very young and high mortality in the old, rather than the U-shaped mortality found in influenza infections, with high mortality in the very young and very old.[27]
While a small sample of dental remains has been tested and lends weight to the hypothesis,[28] there is still no scientific consensus that the 1889–1890 outbreak was caused by a coronavirus, with one analysis of the literature suggesting that the evidence for this causality is still "conjectural".[29]
Before the first outbreak of Russian influenza, Tomsk province was experiencing an epizootic of pneumonia in cattle. Every year from June to November, up to 13,000 cattle, mostly from the Kulunda steppes, Barnaul district and Semipalatinsk region, were brought to Tomsk for slaughter. In autumn 1889, pneumonia was recorded among cattle in Tomsk. But despite the outbreak, the cattle were not isolated and moved freely through the streets of the city. Meat prices dropped to 1 ruble per pood. Because of the resulting disease, the inhabitants of the city either slaughtered the cattle or sold the animals very cheaply (a cow cost from 5 to 8 rubles). The inhabitants of Siberia hoped that with a drop in temperature the epizootic would subside. The newspapers wrote: "Siberians obediently waited for the onset of cold weather, with the appearance of which, however, the epizootic even more intensified, yes, in addition to it came and obnoxious Influenza. Notes on the relationship between influenza and animal diseases were found in the newspaper "Physician" 1889 г.: "...the connection of influenza with epizootics on horses, dogs and cats is undoubted; these epizootics have much in common with influenza...".These data are in favour of the theory that the "Russian influenza" of 1889 could have been caused by a coronavirus transmitted from cattle to humans.[6]