1889–1890 pandemic

Modern transport infrastructure assisted the spread of the 1889 pandemic. The 19 largest European countries, including the Russian Empire, had about 200,000 km of railroads, and transatlantic travel by sea took less than six days (not significantly different from current travel time by air, given the timescale of the global spread of a pandemic). This goes back to publications of a local physician and follower of the miasma theory Oskar Heyfelder, who ignored the lack of catarrhal symptoms in the outbreak. Both a local independent commission of four doctors in August 1889 and historians in 2023 identified the infectious agent in Bukhara from May to August 1889 as not influenza, but malaria, which is endemic in the region, and the latter suggested an anomalously cold and snowy winter and anomalously high ground water levels as possible reasons for the severity of the outbreak. had not yet been constructed (which is often cited as the reason for slow transmission of the virus to European Russia), the anomalous rise in flu cases was detected in the military in the second half of October from multiple European cities all the way to 108th meridian east. By mid-November Kyiv was infected, and the next month the Lake Baikal region was as well, followed by the rest of Siberia and Sakhalin by the end of the year. contagious disease; its virulence and rapid spread across all climates and terrains demonstrated that it was. == Responses ==

Medical treatment There was no standard treatment of flu: quinine and phenazone were used, as well as small doses of strychnine and larger ones of whisky and brandy, and as cheaper treatments linseed, salt and warm water, and glycerin. A result of the Asiatic flu in Malta is that influenza became for the first time a compulsorily notifiable illness. ==Identification of virus responsible==

Influenza virus Researchers have tried for many years to identify the subtypes of Influenza A responsible for the 1889–1890, 1898–1900 and 1918 epidemics. This view is corroborated by converging seroarcheological and mortality data. In blood sera collected in 1956–1957, birth cohorts likely exposed early in life to the 1889–1890 pandemic had the highest percentages of detectable antibodies against the H3 strain that was later responsible for the 1968 pandemic. Correspondingly, excess mortality decreased sharply during that pandemic for these cohorts, who were 78 years old or older at the time. Coronavirus After the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, virologists started sequencing human and animal coronaviruses. A comparison of two virus strains in the Betacoronavirus 1 species bovine coronavirus and human coronavirus OC43 indicated that the two had a most recent common ancestor in the late 19th century, with several methods yielding most probable dates around 1890. The authors speculated that an introduction of the former strain to the human population, rather than influenza, might have caused the 1889 epidemic. While a small sample of dental remains has been tested and lends weight to the hypothesis, there is still no scientific consensus that the 1889–1890 outbreak was caused by a coronavirus, with one analysis of the literature suggesting that the evidence for this causality is still "conjectural". Before the first outbreak of Russian influenza, Tomsk province was experiencing an epizootic of pneumonia in cattle. Every year from June to November, up to 13,000 cattle, mostly from the Kulunda steppes, Barnaul district and Semipalatinsk region, were brought to Tomsk for slaughter. In autumn 1889, pneumonia was recorded among cattle in Tomsk. But despite the outbreak, the cattle were not isolated and moved freely through the streets of the city. Meat prices dropped to 1 ruble per pood. Because of the resulting disease, the inhabitants of the city either slaughtered the cattle or sold the animals very cheaply (a cow cost from 5 to 8 rubles). The inhabitants of Siberia hoped that with a drop in temperature the epizootic would subside. The newspapers wrote: "Siberians obediently waited for the onset of cold weather, with the appearance of which, however, the epizootic even more intensified, yes, in addition to it came and obnoxious Influenza. Notes on the relationship between influenza and animal diseases were found in the newspaper "Physician" 1889 г.: "...the connection of influenza with epizootics on horses, dogs and cats is undoubted; these epizootics have much in common with influenza...".These data are in favour of the theory that the "Russian influenza" of 1889 could have been caused by a coronavirus transmitted from cattle to humans. == Patterns of mortality ==

Unlike most influenza pandemics such as the 1918 flu, primarily elderly people died in 1889. Due to generally lower standards of living, worse hygiene, and poorer standard of medicine, the proportion of vulnerable people was higher than in the modern world. ==Notable infections==

Deaths First outbreak • 1 January 1890 Henry R. Pierson • 7 January 1890 Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach Dowager German Empress, Queen of Prussia • 14 January 1890 Ignaz von Döllinger • 15 January 1890 Walker Blaine • 18 January 1890 Amadeo I of Spain • 22 January 1890 Adam Forepaugh • 22 February 1890 Bill Blair • 12 March 1890 William Allen • 26 March 1890 Afrikan Spir • 23 May 1890 Louis Artan • 19 July 1890 James P. Walker • 14 August 1890 Michael J. McGivney Recurrences • 23 January 1891 Prince Baudouin of Belgium • 10 February 1891 Sofya Kovalevskaya • 18 March 1891 William Herndon • 22 April 1891 John Ballou Newbrough • 5 May 1891 William Connor Magee • 8 May 1891 Helena Blavatsky • 15 May 1891 Edwin Long • 3 June 1891 Oliver St John • 9 June 1891 Henry Gawen Sutton • 1 July 1891 Frederic Edward Manby • 20 December 1891 Grisell Baillie • 28 December 1891 William Arthur White • 7 January 1892 Tewfik Pasha • 8 January 1892 John Tay • 10 January 1892 John George Knight • 12 January 1892 Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau • 14 January 1892 Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, grandson of Queen Victoria and second-in-line to the British throne • 17 January 1892 Charles A. Spring • 20 January 1892 Douglas Hamilton • 12 February 1892 Thomas Sterry Hunt • 9 March 1892 Sereno Watson • 15 April 1892 Amelia Edwards • 5 May 1892 Gustavus Cheyney Doane • 24 May 1892 Charles Arthur Broadwater • 10 June 1892 Charles Fenerty • 21 April 1893 Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby • 2 July 1893 Georgie Drew Barrymore • 7 August 1893 Thomas Burges • 31 August 1893 William Cusins • 15 December 1893 Samuel Laycock • 16 December 1893 Tom Edwards-Moss • 3 January 1894 Hungerford Crewe, 3rd Baron Crewe • 24 January 1894 Constance Fenimore Woolson • 24 January 1894 Laura Schirmer Mapleson • 14 March 1894 John T. Ford • 19 June 1894 William Mycroft • 19 February 1895 John Hulke • 1 March 1895 Frederic Chapman • 2 March 1895 Berthe Morisot • 5 March 1895 Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet • 20 March 1895 James Sime • 24 March 1895 John L. O'Sullivan • 2 August 1895 Joseph Thomson Survivors • Alexander III of Russia • Marie François Sadi Carnot • Charles I of Württemberg • Empress Elisabeth of Austria • Archduke Ernst of Austria • William Ewart Gladstone • Maurice de Hirsch • Johanna von Puttkamer • Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia • Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria • Olga Nikolaevna of Russia • Pierre Tirard • Edward Villiers, 5th Earl of Clarendon ==See also==