100 Year History Challenge：Explore1918 台灣大瘟疫

explore1918

My dear Steemit friends, @sndbox held a 100 Year History Challenge: explore1918, discover the story happened in 1918 and related to you. I think the challenge is very meaningful and can help us trace the historical event that affects us.

After the research, I am surprised to find a terrible epidemic that was forgotten by most people in Taiwan. In an age when everyone was totally unaware of influenza, the epidemic was almost like death coming. It's the largest plague in Taiwan's history.

In 1918, during the World War I, the world was suddenly panicked by an infectious disease known as the Spanish flu, causing 1/3 of the world's population to be infected and 500 million to 100 million people died. The global fatality rate was about 2.5%. It was apparently a terrible and fatal crisis compared with general influenza 0.1 fatality rate. It was also one of the reason for the early end or World War I because all countries do not have enough troops to fight in the war.

親愛的Steemit朋友們，@snbox舉辦了一個百年歷史競賽，探索1918年發生了什麼跟自己有關的故事。我覺得這個競賽非常有意義，可以幫助自己追溯對自己有影響的歷史事件。

在搜尋過後，很驚訝的發現了一場被台灣大部份人遺忘的可怕傳染病，在那個大家對於流感完全沒有認識的年代，流感肆虐有如死神降臨，堪稱台灣有史以來最大的瘟疫蔓延。

當時正值第一次世界大戰期間，1918年全球突然因為一種被稱為「西班牙型流行感冒」引起的傳染病引起恐慌，造成全世界1/3的人口感染，5千萬～1億人死亡，全球致死率約為2.5%~5%，與一般流感0.1致死率比起來，顯然是個可怕的致命危機。這也成為第一次世界大戰提早結束的原因之一，因為各國都已經沒有足夠的兵力投入戰爭。

Seatle
Source: Wikimedia

The flu virus was named Spanish flu not because the flu originated in Spain, but because the flu virus spread on a massive scale when the soldiers returned to their home countries since the World War I was coming to the end. At that time, all countries involved in the war had strict control over the media. Only Spain, the neutral country, could make a big report, creating the illusion that the epidemic situation was particularly serious. It's one of the most serious and massive fatal events in human history.

這波流感病毒的名字由來並不是因為流感起源來自西班牙，而是因為時值第一次世界大戰即將結束，流感病毒隨著軍人回到母國，造成大規模傳播，當時參戰各國對於傳媒有嚴格的管控，只有中立國西班牙可以大肆報導，形成一種疫情特別嚴重的錯覺，所以被稱為西班牙型流行性感冒，是人類歷史上最嚴重的大規模致命事件之一。

Kansas
Source: Wikimedia

The global pandemic was divided into three waves. The first wave was between June to September 1918 when the outbreak was not serious, neither the West nor Taiwan suffered any serious deaths. However, cases of infection had been detected in the Keelung area.

A month later, the second wave of influenza suddenly comeback and menacing. Flu was once again landed from Keelung because Keelung was an important port for the outside world.

The virus spread along the east coast to Hualien and Taitung by sea. It also spread followed the western line by railway to Pingtung, even Penghu was not immune. Basically, entire Taiwan was shrouded Under the attack of the influenza virus.

The second wave of influenza was also the deadliest wave of the epidemic.

The United States even has a horrifying record of the deaths of 10,000 people in a single week. At that time, Europe and the United States were shrouded in the shadow of death.

這場全球流行的流感分為三波，第一波在1918年6月到9月間，當時疫情並不嚴重，不論是西方或是台灣都沒有太嚴重的死亡人數，不過當時已發現基隆地區有感染的病例。

過了一個月，第二波流感突然捲土重來且來勢洶洶。當時基隆是對外的重要港口，因此流感再度從基隆登陸，東岸沿著海運傳入花東，西岸則沿著縱貫線、鐵道傳至屏東，甚至連澎湖都無法倖免，基本上整個台灣都籠罩於流感病毒的侵襲之下。第二波流感也是造成死亡率最慘烈的一波疫情，美國甚至有單周內一萬人病亡的恐怖紀錄，當時的歐美社會整個籠罩於死亡的陰影中。

In October 1918, the Japanese entertained the Taiwanese aborigines to Taipei, sending the virus back to the tribe and causing mass death.

The campus also occurred in the incident of mass infection. The Tainan second high school was doing school trip to Wushe and the students were almost all infected.

At the end of the same year, the Pingtung primary and secondary schools held united sports competition and accelerated the massive spread of the epidemic.

At that time, the Aboriginal people believed that the Japanese had offended their holy places and angered the ancestral souls. Therefore, an attack on Japanese police officers took place.

Tainan residents launched a Mazu Pilgrimage activity. Hsinchu citizens try to stop the outbreak by holding some united events to invoke the power of the gods such as the Town God, Guanyin and Mazu. From this, we can see the extent of public panic.

1918年10月日本人招待原住民到台北遊玩，將病毒傳回部落，造成大規模的死亡。

而校園也發生了群聚感染的事件，當時的台南二中前往霧社做修學旅行，幾乎全體感染。同年年底，屏東中小學舉行聯合運動會，也加速疫情大規模擴散。

當時原住民認為是日本人冒犯了他們的聖地，讓祖靈生氣了，所以發生了群起襲擊日本警察的事件。

台南市民發起媽祖遶境的活動，新竹市民則聯合城隍、觀音和天上聖母等眾神聯合出巡，民眾藉由祈求神靈的力量企圖遏止疫情，由此可窺見當時民眾恐慌的程度。

Mazu
Source: Wikimedia (示意圖片，非當時活動照片)

In July 1918, the new governor of Taiwan, Akashi Motojiroh, first stepped onto the land of Taiwan and turned out to be the dead soul of the epidemic.

At that time, Taiwan was booming and various public constructions were actively started. Akashi Motojiroh took office with great ambition and was prepared to build Taiwan. But he was hit by this death catastrophe.

source: Wikimedia

1918年7月，新任駐台總督明石元二郎首次踏上台灣土地，竟然也成為這場疫情的亡魂。當時的台灣正在蓬勃發展，各項公共建設積極的動工，明石元二郎帶著萬丈雄心上任，準備好好大展長才建設台灣，卻遇上這場死亡浩劫。

In October 1918, the epidemic broke out in Taiwan and the notification system unable to keep up with the speed of transmission of the virus so that the government lost the first opportunity for epidemic prevention.

It was not until 11/3 Governor's House held the Taiwan Medical Conference that schools at all levels were required to suspend classes and public health orders were issued. However, the epidemic did not ease but instead reached its peak in November.

1918年10月，疫情在台灣一發不可收拾，無法跟上病毒傳播速度的通報系統讓政府失去了防疫的先機，直到11/3總督府才召開台灣醫學大會，建議各級學校停課，並指示各項公共衛生的政令。但是疫情並未因此緩解，反而在11月到達最高峰。

The epidemic slowed down gradually in 1919 but hit Akashi Motojiroh. Under the doctor's rescue, he survived but his body was weak from then on.

On October, he returned to Japan and developed symptoms of a cold. Finally, he died of illness in his hometown, Ishioka.

He requested to bury his body to Taiwan after his death. So his body was transported back to Taiwan where he had no time to build, and was buried at the Japanese Cemetery in Taipei. He became the only Japanese governor buried in Taiwan in the Taiwan history under Japanese rule.

疫情在1919年逐漸趨緩，但卻襲向了明石元二郎。在醫師的搶救下，他熬過了這場死劫，但是身體卻因此衰弱不振。10月他返日洽公，出現感冒症狀，最後病逝於他的故鄉石岡。明石總督遺言，死後將其遺體葬於台灣，因此他的遺體被運回他來不及建設的寶島台灣，葬於台北的日本人公墓，成為日治歷史上唯一葬於台灣的總督。

grave
台灣台北市林森公園日治時期第7任總督明石元二郎墓舊址
source: wikipedia

The third wave of the outbreak occurred in the spring of 1919, while the island of Taiwan took place in the winter and lasted until February 1920.

In that outbreak, about 70 million Taiwanese were infected, more than 25,000 were dead and hundreds of millions were infected worldwide.

You may not have an idea of these figures. Let us compare the SARS panic caused before which only 8,000 people are infected in the world. By comparison, the power of the Spanish flu in 1918 was really staggering.

It is noteworthy that the medical records in Taiwan at that time found that the death rate of Japanese people was about 1.1%, that of Taiwanese people was 3.4% and that of Indigenous Peoples was as high as 5%. From this, we can see the differences in medical concepts and the distribution of medical resources.

第三波疫情發生於1919年春天，而台灣本島則是到了冬天才發生，一直延續到1920年的二月。

在那次的疫情中，大約有70幾萬名台灣人感染，2萬5千多人死亡，全球則有數億人被感染。大家也許對這些數字沒有太大的概念，我們來比較一下之前引起恐慌的SARS，全球也才8千多人染病，相較之下，1918年西班牙流感的威力實在非常驚人。

值得注意的是，當時台灣的病歷紀錄中發現，日本人死亡率約1.1%，台灣人3.4%，原住民則高達5%，由此可以看出醫療觀念的差距及醫療資源分配的差別。

chart
Source
More specifically, the general target of flu deaths is usually young children, the elderly, or immunocompromised patients.

However, most of the deceased persons of this epidemic of infectious diseases were mostly young adults.

Afterwards, the study found that the cause of the flu virus was lethal because of the "cytokine storm" that caused the autoimmune system to overreact and the immune system attack their own healthy cells, But led to the most immune young adults caused a strong immune response and died.

The influenza mysteriously disappeared two years after its outbreak. It was not until 1933 that the first human influenza virus was isolated and named H1N1. The current study judged that the 1918 pandemic could be an influenza transfer from avian flu to adult flu.

I can not help to imagine that the human catastrophe caused by the World War I, which makes the creator unable to endure and extend the hand of God to end the tragedy of human's killing by this mysterious disease.

更特別的是，一般流感死亡的對象通常是幼童、老人、或是免疫力低下的病人。但是這次流行傳染病事件的死者卻多數是青壯年，經過後來的研究發現這波流感病毒致死的原因是因為引起「細胞素風暴」，導致自體免疫系統過度反應，免疫系統攻擊自身健康的細胞，反而導致免疫力最強的青壯年引起強烈的免疫反應而死。