What was the virulent menace that Americans faced in the postwar period and that caused more casualties than the war itself?

Answer 1

The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 came in three waves, with no apparent cause or remedy. Recent estimates tallied a global mortality from the pandemic between 30 and 50 million, with some 675,000 Americans were among the dead.

It was first reported in March 1918 in Haskell County, Kansas sent a worrisome report to the Public Health Service that "18 cases of influenza of a severe type" had been reported there.By May, reports of severe influenza came from Europe as the young soldiers were becoming ill in large numbers. Most of these men recovered quickly but some developed a secondary pneumonia of incredibly deadly strain. Within two months, influenza had spread from the military to the civilian population in Europe. From there, the disease spread to Asia, Africa, South America and, back again, to North America.

In late August, the influenza virus mutated again and epidemics erupted in three port cities: Freetown, Sierra Leone; Brest, France, and Boston, Massachusetts. By mid-September, the epidemic had spread nationwide, with California, North Dakota, Florida and Texas reporting severe epidemics. Entire families became ill. In Philadelphia, so many children were orphaned that the Bureau of Child Hygiene found itself overwhelmed and unable to care for them.As the disease spread, schools and businesses emptied. Telegraph and telephone services collapsed as operators took to their beds. Garbage went uncollected as garbage men reported sick. The mail piled up as postal carriers failed to come to work. As the bodies accumulated, funeral parlors ran out of caskets and bodies went uncollected in morgues.

But in November, two months after the pandemic had erupted, the Public Health Service began reporting that influenza cases were declining. In addition to the 675,000 dead, an estimated 5 times that figure were widows and orphans.