1. Presents:
How Many Americans
Died of the Russian Flu?
ROBERT LEGGE, JONATHAN WALTON, ELIJAH FIORE
SPONSOR: PROFESSOR TOM EWING, DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
KG3 Presents:
2. Problem Statement
How many people died of the Russian Flu between
December 1889 and January 1890 in the United
States?
Russian Flu killed an estimated 1 million
worldwide
Spanish Flu killed an estimated 50 million
worldwide, infected 500 million
1890 Census is the primary source of data
“Acting in concert we ought to knock out the town”
Evening World (NYC)
January 7, 1890
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4. Literature Review
Only a handful of articles exist on the Russian Flu.
French study examining age distribution of the epidemic based on
census data from 15 countries
Paper by J.F. Brundage investigating case rates and death rates from
different strains of influenza in the American Journal of Preventative
Medicine
Professor Ewing’s theory is well cited in his exploratory article on the Vital
Statistics data. He illustrates a lack of reported “La Grippe” cases paired with
an abundance of other reported diseases such as pneumonia.
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12. La Grippe Reported vs. Plus Excess
Reported La Grippe
Deaths
Estimated Excess
Deaths
Total La Grippe Deaths Plus Excess
Deaths
Group 1 2,177 9,360 11,537
Total US 13,049 9,360 22,409
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13. La Grippe Reported vs. Plus Excess
1890 La Grippe Deaths 1890 La Grippe Deaths Plus Excess
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14. Quantitative Results
Reported Death Estimated Excess Deaths
Bronchitis 21,420 4,702
Pneumonia 76,578 3,127
Consumption 102,727 4,599
Totals 200,725 12,428
1890 La Grippe Deaths
Total Reported 13,049
Total Estimated with Excess 25,477
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15. Validation - Scarlet Fever
Scarlet Fever is easily identifiable by a red rash
Using Excess Analysis should not return any excess
One state out of 46 showed excess
Likely an outlier, but no way to be sure
Shows that the method works
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16. Scarlet Fever Deaths Per 100,000
North East
Heartland and Mid-Atlantic Midwest and South
West
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18. Limitations
Data that did exist was not in a usable format
Not enough time to enter available data
Time constraints
Inconsistent reporting across Census data
1890 Census
1880 Census
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19. Lessons Learned
Difficulty of solving a historical problem
Be more realistic
Parallelize tasks better
Communication is key
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20. Conclusion
Our conservative estimate suggests 25,477 deaths, compared to 13,049 reported
11,537 were in Group 1 (North East area)
Unable to verify our results due to the nature of the data
Stepping stone for future analysis as more data is gathered
Thank you to Professor Ewing and Dr. Embree for their mentorship and guidance
Questions
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Editor's Notes
Pointed, non-open ended question, integer response
December to January was the timeframe of the main outbreak
Falls within the exact window that the decennial census was being taken.
Most time consuming part of the project
OCR, which is Optical Character Recognition
All data we used was manually entered for each census
This portion of the census lists how many people died of various reasons.
Census does include totals as well as some major cities
198 reason total
We recorded 12 reasons for death that Professor Ewing felt could have been confused with Russian Flu deaths including Pneumonia and Bronchitis.
The Russian Flu is listed in this census as “La Grippe” (120)
French study found that infants and the elderly died more frequently from the disease.
Mentioned in a paper that compared death rates of various influenza strains.
Not many people died of the Russian Flu compared to the Spanish Flu.
Historical Research has been much more focused on the Spanish Flu epidemic.
Why does our sponsor care? He wants to set the record straight as he has found that in his research “La Grippe” was potentially under-reported while there was an abundance of other diseases.
Historical Validity was our measure of how our model differed from what was reported
Usability: It would be more convenient for our sponsor, who does not have a technical background, to run a program rather than edit scripts.
Missing states: An issue. Changing borders, names, territories
In 1900, Dakota became North and South Dakota and so we cannot show the state as a result
Oklahoma was Indian Territory prior to 1900
Just illustrates the previous slide’s point. Looking at the disease death rates by group, Scarlet Fever does not show the excess deaths like the diseases we included.
Majority of excess being in North East supports theory that poor identification and reporting is the cause
The data we had was all we could work with
In the event that we somehow get a hold of death certificates and more data, what we’ve done can be applied in the same manner to find results
Thank you to Professor Ewing and Dr. Embree
At this time I’d like to thank you all as well and open up the floor to any questions.
