The Spanish Flu Hits Illinois in 1918-- Part 2: Horror Stories from Great Lakes Naval Hospital

Chicago ran out of hearses.  Signs were posted banning public funerals, and limiting funerals to no more than ten attendees, in addition to the pastor, undertaker and necessary drivers.  No bodies were allowed in churches.

A U.S. Public Health Service Officer named Jo Cobb working at the city's Marine Hospital wrote a friend,  "Our beds were filled as fast as emptied."

Navy nurse Josie Brown, who served at the Naval Hospital at Great Lakes (in nearby North Chicago) wrote:  "The morgues were packed almost to the ceiling with bodies stacked one on top of another.  The morticians worked day and night.  You could never turn around  without seeing a big red truck loaded with caskets for the train station so bodies could be sent home.

"We didn't have the time to treat them.  We didn't take temperatures;  we didn't even have time to take blood pressure.  We would give them a little hot whisky toddy; that's all we had time to do.  They would have terrific nose bleeds with it.  Sometimes the blood would just shoot across the room.  You had to get out of the way or someone's nose would bleed all over you."

When it comes to pandemics, there is no rational basis to believe that the early years of the 21st century will be different from the past.    If a pandemic strikes, it will come to Illinois.

As of April 13, 2020, the cases and deaths in Illinois due to the coronavirus are 22,025 cases and 794 deaths.

--Cooter