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Acta medico-historica Adriatica : AMHA, Vol. 18 No. 1, 2020.

Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.31952/amha.18.1.3

THE 1918/19 SPANISH FLU IN PISA (TUSCANY, ITALY): CLINICAL, EPIDEMIOLOGICAL AND AUTOPTIC CONSIDERATIONS

Raffaele Gaeta orcid id orcid.org/0000-0001-5220-5997 ; Division of Paleopathology, Department of Translational Research and of New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa
Antonio Fornaciari ; Division of Paleopathology, Department of Translational Research and of New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa
Valentina Giuffra ; Division of Paleopathology, Department of Translational Research and of New Technologies in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa

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Abstract

The Spanish flu pandemic spread in 1918-19 and infected about 500 million people, killing 50
to 100 million of them. People were suffering from severe poverty and malnutrition, especially
in Europe, due to the First World War, and this contributed to the diffusion of the disease.
In Italy, Spanish flu appeared in April 1918 with several cases of pulmonary congestion and
bronchopneumonia; at the end of the epidemic, about 450.000 people died, causing one of
the highest mortality rates in Europe.
From the archive documents and the autoptic registers of the Hospital of Pisa, we can express
some considerations on the impact of the pandemic on the population of the city and obtain some information about the deceased. In the original necroscopic registers, 43 autopsies
were reported with the diagnosis of grippe (i.e. Spanish flu), of which the most occurred from
September to December 1918. Most of the dead were young individuals, more than half were
soldiers, and all of them showed confluent hemorrhagic lung bronchopneumonia, which was
the typical feature of the pandemic flu. We believe that the study of the autopsy registers represents an incomparable instrument for
the History of Medicine and a useful resource to understand the origin and the evolution of
the diseases.

Keywords

Spanish flu, pandemic, Pisa, autopsy

Hrčak ID:

240881

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/240881

Publication date:

1.7.2020.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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