BHS e245-1918 Influenza Epidemic

The first Brattleboro death from the flu epidemic occurred on September 30, 1918. The victim was a 36 year old Fort Dummer Cotton Mill worker named Isidor Bellair. He was a French Canadian immigrant who had moved his family to Brattleboro two years earlier in order to find work at the mill. He was survived by his wife and six small children, the youngest being only 5 months old. The 1918 flu has been called the worst pandemic in the history of the world. The disease attacked the lungs, caused high fever, delirium and terrible pains in the back and limbs. It was accompanied by nausea and spread quickly. Victims were often worn down by the flu and then died from pneumonia. In a fifteen month period approximately 650,000 people in the U.S. died from the illness. There was no vaccine to protect against the flu and no antibiotics to treat the resulting bacterial infections like pneumonia. Strategies promoted by the Red Cross to combat the illness were quarantine, good personal hygiene, and limited public gatherings.