'100 deaths per day'.

• Position: PAIRING A PRIMARY & SECONDARY SOURCE

The influenza, or flu, pandemic of 1918 was one of the deadliest outbreaks in history. It struck in the fall of that year, as World War I was coming to an end, and hit crowded military bases especially hard. Below is an excerpt from a letter written by a doctor at Camp Devens, a military base near Boston. Read it along with the Times Past feature in this issue of Upfront. Then answer the guestions that follow, citing evidence from the texts to support your responses.

A Letter From Comp Devens

My dear Burt,

It is more than likely that you would be interested in the news of this place, for there is a possibility that you will be assigned here for duty, so having a minute between rounds I will try to tell you a little about the situation here as I have seen it in the last week....

Camp Devens is near Boston, and has about 50,000 men, or did have before this epidemic broke loose. It also has the base hospital for the Division of the Northeast. This epidemic started about four weeks ago, and has developed so rapidly that the camp is demoralized and all ordinary work is held up till it has passed.... These men start with what appears to be an attack of ... influenza, and when brought to the hospital they very rapidly develop the most viscous type of pneumonia that has ever been seen. TVvo hours after admission they have the mahogany spots over the cheek bones, and a few hours later you can begin to see the cyanosis [skin discoloration] extending from their ears and spreading all over the face, until it is hard to distinguish the coloured men from the white. It is only a matter of a few hours then until death comes, and it is simply a struggle for air until they suffocate. It is horrible. One can stand it to see one, two or twenty men die, but to see these poor devils dropping like flies sort of gets on your nerves. We have been averaging about 100 deaths per day, and still keeping it up. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a new mixed infection here, but what I don't know. My total time is taken up hunting rales, rales dry or moist, sibilant [hissing] or crepitant [crackling] or any other of the hundred things that one may find in the chest, they all mean but one thing here-- pneumonia--and that means in...