Unearthing Insights: 1918 Flu Pandemic Skeletons Shed Light on Mortality Factors
A study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has examined the skeletal remains of individuals who died during the 1918 flu pandemic, challenging the assumption that the virus primarily affected young, healthy adults. Researchers from McMaster University and the University of Colorado Boulder found that frail or unhealthy individuals were more vulnerable to the virus. The study analyzed the bones for lesions indicating stress or inflammation, which could have been caused by physical trauma, infection, or malnutrition. The findings highlight the impact of cultural, social, and biological circumstances on the likelihood of death during pandemics. However, the study's limitations include a lack of information on infected individuals who survived and the limited scope of the sample from Cleveland, Ohio.
