Features

 

By Sara E. Butner

 

Only at Guilford does a biology professor send her students to the quiet library files of the Friends Historical Collection for a class assignment.

Students in the First Year Experience course “Flu Pandemic, Past and Present,” developed by Assistant Professor of Biology Michelle Malotky two years ago, examined the social, historical and political impact of the most devastating epidemic in modern times – the 1918 “Spanish flu” that killed millions world-wide. Their task was to compare response to the disease in several communities, including Guilford’s campus.

In examining available medical records from the time, the Friends Historical Collection’s Liz Cook found something strange: unlike other area colleges and the City of Greensboro, Guilford had apparently not suffered a single fatality. Malotky’s class looked at what Guilford might have done differently to save the lives of its students. “That’s when Laura Worth’s name came up,” Malotky says.

Worth, a member of Guilford’s first class of college students, was the first physical education director for women and the college’s nurse from 1905 to 1928. In this role, she would have had primary responsibility for managing quarantine efforts on campus. Several times over the 1918-19 school year, students showing influenza symptoms would be confined to a sick wing of one residence hall. During quarantine periods, day students were required to live on campus; visitors could not enter campus buildings.

It’s not clear from the records whether or not Worth herself proposed the quarantines, but there’s no doubt her oversight saved lives. Malotky points out that Worth also encouraged outdoor activity, organizing picnics and walks to Battleground Park. A February 1919 edition of The Guilfordian describes how Worth personally entertained quarantined patients with popped corn, candied apples and music from a Victrola.

Lots of communities attempted quarantines, says Martha Lang, a visiting assistant professor of sociology and anthropology, but they weren’t always effective. “One of the reasons quarantines didn’t work well in a lot of instances is that people were not willing to give up their individual needs for the collective good. But it appears that Quaker values were very important there. I just find that striking,” she says.

Lang’s “Epidemics in Historical Perspective” course also required students to study Guilford’s reaction to the 1918 flu. Like Malotky, Lang was surprised to discover that no one died from the flu at Guilford. “That is staggering, because I have never seen another case reported in the scientific literature where that was true, with this particular epidemic of flu,” she says.

The 1918 strain seems tailor-made to wreak havoc on a community like Guilford’s. The 1918 flu disproportionately killed young, healthy people, says Malotky. Modern research has determined that the flu prompted what scientists call a “cytokine storm.” “Cytokines are these chemicals that are produced by your immune system that help to amplify the response – recruit more cells to help attack whatever’s there,” Malotky explains. “Usually that system is kept in check pretty well, but in this case for whatever reason this virus was able to potentiate it so it just went out of control.” Like an allergic reaction, the patient’s own immune response did the worst damage. “If anything, [Guilford’s population] was more susceptible than others around,” she says.

With such a “perfect storm” of infectious disease, it’s all the more notable that all of the patients at Guilford apparently survived. “We look at places where people had state-of-the art medical care, and people were dying. So, that little old Guilford put people in Hege-Cox Hall as an infirmary, and students nursed students – it’s pretty remarkable that they were able to practice really good public health,” Lang says.

Both classes looked at the context of the epidemic – what historical events, such as World War I troop mobilization, may have impacted the way the virus spread. It’s also worth a look at what life was like at Guilford 90 years ago when the influenza pandemic struck.

Coming on the heels of World War I, which had pulled away many male students, the flu could have been disastrous. Raymond Binford had only joined the college as president in June, following the tumultuous tenure of Thomas Newlin. Several young faculty had resigned; with preparatory students outnumbering college students, some had even suggested closing the college wing altogether.

Against the odds, the community moved through the crisis. In October 1918, at the pandemic’s height in the United States, 200,000 people would die in a single month. In Philadelphia, undertakers ran out of wood to build coffins. Throughout that month, The Guilfordian noted the temporary return of the quarantine and the cancellation of football season, given the “serious illness” of Coach Robert Doak. (Doak recovered from his bout with the flu, becoming Guilford College’s longtime postmaster until his death in 1942.)

Those same issues of the school’s newspaper advertise a picnic at Battleground Park, a chicken fry and social and the activities of various debate societies. “Guilford College has been put on its mettle this fall,” Francis C. Anscombe wrote in that year’s edition of the Guilford College Bulletin. “[But] we were just one big happy family…We learned to know and appreciate each other. This is how we managed it; this is how G.C. cheated the grim ogre quarantine; this is how we evaded the ‘flu.’”

In his year-end summary, Binford reported 70 cases of the flu, with all patients recovering. “We were fortunate in securing a capable nurse to handle the situation,” he wrote. That nurse, Laura Worth, remained active in the college community, becoming an expert on the area’s Quaker genealogy. She died in 1945.

Neither Malotky or Lang taught their flu-related courses this fall, but both plan to return to the subject matter in the future. “Until recently we never even talked about this epidemic. It was the forgotten epidemic, because it was so frightening and because we don’t really have that much control over it,” Lang says. Malotky agrees, noting that “there’s no way to spin it to make it something really upbeat.”

“You know, comparatively, if you look nationwide, there was hardly a community that wasn’t affected [by the flu],” Malotky says. “Even small towns – villages in Alaska that were just wiped out. So, to have a community where there wasn’t – I mean, people got sick, but no one died – that’s pretty remarkable.”