Pandemic

The Spanish Flu in Australia 1918-1920

Ian W Shaw

• Publisher: Woodslane Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9781925868449
• eBook ISBN:
  9781925868531
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

Between January 1919 and March 1920, waves of Spanish flu swept across Australia, touching every settlement from the bottom of Tasmania to the tip of Cape York and from Byron Bay in the east to Broome in the west.
At least 15, 000 people died and many more were incapacitated, but medical and health specialists, by literally putting their lives on the line, saved countless more and gave Australia a template for what was to come at the country exactly a century later.
This book tells the full story of the Australian experience of the Spanish Flu and of those who fought it and sometimes lost their lives to it.
This fascinating account also illustrates many striking parallels to the Covid pandemic of 2020, including intense interstate rivalries, personal heroics, frequent confusion and incompetence, and widespread economic disruption.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1, Incubation
• Chapter 2, Prophylaxis
• Chapter 3, An Ounce of Prevention
• Chapter 4, Woodman’s Point
• Chapter 5, Hiatus: December 1918-January 1919
• Chapter 6, Public Policy, Private Pain
• Chapter 7, New South Wales: The Heart of the Matter
• Chapter 8, Victoria: A State of (some) Denial
• Chapter 9, South Australia: A Big Picnic and a Little Mutiny
• Chapter 10, Queensland: A Little Late, a Little Light
• Chapter 11, Western Australia: Friction at the Edges
• Chapter 12, Tasmania and T.I.: The Outliers
• Chapter 13, Post-mortem
• Appendix, The long voyage of the Boonah
• Endnotes
• References