Dr. Woods Hutchinson had viewpoints about a specific epidemic. “The reason for the spread? Pig-headedness, not another thing,” he raved in Des Moines on November 25,1918 “We understood it prevailed in Europe and that it would find its method here.” His speech on the so-called Spanish influenza was colorful, to state the least. “The ‘flu’ bacterium doesn’t care a hang for your mindset,” he kept in mind. “After he settles in your nose, he does not offer a blankety-blank whether you hesitate of him or not.”
Instead, he whole-heartedly espoused the usage of masks, pointing to the West Coast, where some cities made mask-wearing obligatory in public. Like today’s makeshift masks, their effectiveness may have been restricted. Some Americans took flu safety one step further: they masked their felines, too.
One image, dating from the years when Spanish influenza rampaged across the United States, reveals an unknown family of 6, in Dublin, California, all wearing the basic mask of the time: “white and fastened around the head,” as Catharine Arnold composes in Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History. And the household patriarch holds a tense-looking masked feline under his arm, like a loaf of bread.
Individuals worldwide are worrying over their pets catching COVID-19: A recent research study recommended that felines can contract it, a minimum of under lab conditions. Pet dogs seem to be less vulnerable, though dog masks have actually popped up on eBay In February, news stories revealed unfortunate felines in China whose owners covered their faces totally with masks, merely punching out holes for the eyes.
The images motivated worldwide hilarity, and perhaps they were implied to– it’s difficult to picture a cat in fact putting up with a face mask for any considerable amount of time. Humor may have been an inspiration for photos of masked animals from the early-20 th century.
But there was real worry that pets could carry Spanish influenza. In Allentown, Pennsylvania, one councilman firmly insisted that dogs and felines was accountable for the spread of the illness, proposing that they all be eliminated or at the minimum shaved to avoid more infections. In Phoenix, it was rumored that canines might carry influenza. Police killed strays, while some people eliminated their own animals. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Avoidance, some influenza viruses can pass from particular birds and mammals to human beings, though it’s uncommon for them to directly make the jump to people.
When canines did get the mask treatment, it was treated as a joke. “What is thought to be the very first masked ball game ever staged,” trumpeted when newspaper, when 2 groups went head-to-head in Pasadena, California, in early1919 The umpires, players, viewers, and the mascot’s dog gathered for the video game in linen and cheesecloth masks. The pet dog’s picture made the local paper, as did that of Yancia, a 5-year-old Boston bulldog whose masked muzzle beautified the pages of The Seattle Star in late1918 “This Seattle Pet Dog Uses Flu Mask” read the heading, and her owner told the paper that “she has made the best of it in excellent spirit, as all of us have.”
According to Tyler Phillips of the Dublin Heritage Park & Museum, the identity of the household of 6 was who posed with their feline a century earlier is unidentified. All of them are wearing masks. The names of the ladies and the cats are listed on the back: “Leading row, Anna Kilgore, E.K. Barr, Ms. Anna S. Shaw.
The photo is part of the collection of Dan Eskenazi, the curator of Seattle’s Giant Shoe Museum. One can imagine the ladies– bored roomies throughout an apparently unlimited epidemic– trooping outdoors in their glorious hats, then slipping the inglorious masks over Tommy and Golly’s heads.
