The influenza deaths in Massachusetts in the year 1890 during a period of fifty days were estimated by Abbott to have been 2,500. In 1918 Jordan estimates the mortality for the same state to have been six times as great. The population of the state had not doubled in the interval. The highest mortality from influenza in Massachusetts during the 1889–93 epidemic occurred in January, 1892, during which month the total deaths amounted to 6,309 which was greater by 2,246 than the mean monthly mortality of the year, and greater by more than 1,000 than the mortality of any month in the ten year period 1883–92.
A comprehensive comparison of the damage done by influenza in 1918 with the deaths from other plagues has been made by Vaughan and Palmer.
“The pandemic of 1918, when compared with that of 1889–90 is estimated to have caused six times as many deaths.
“During the four autumn months of 1918, 338,343 cases of influenza were reported to the Surgeon General. This means that in the camps of this country one out of every four men had influenza.
“The combination between influenza and pneumonia during the fall of 1918 seems to have been closer and more destructive than in any previous pandemic. During the autumn season there were reported to the Surgeon General 61,691 cases of pneumonia. This means that one out of every twenty-four men encamped in this country had pneumonia.
“During the same period 22,186 men were reported to have died from the combined effects of influenza and pneumonia. This means that among the troops in this country one out of every sixty-seven died.
“This fatality has been unparallelled in recent times. The influenza epidemic of 1918 ranks well up with the epidemics famous in history. Epidemiologists have regarded the dissemination of cholera from the Broad Street Well in London as a catastrophe. The typhoid epidemic of Plymouth, Pa., of 1885, is another illustration of the damage that can be done by epidemic disease once let loose. Yet the accompanying table shows that the fatality from influenza and pneumonia at Camp Sherman was greater than either of these. Compared with epidemics for which we have fairly accurate statistics the death rate at Camp Sherman in the fall of 1918 is surpassed only by that of plague in London in 1665 and that of yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793.
“The plague killed 14 per cent. of London’s population in seven months’ time. Yellow fever destroyed 10 per cent. of the population of Philadelphia in four months. In seven weeks influenza and pneumonia killed 3.1 per cent. of the strength at Camp Sherman. If we consider the time factor, these three instances are not unlike in their lethality. The plague killed 2 per cent. of the population in a month, yellow fever 2.5 per cent. and influenza and pneumonia 1.9 per cent.
“In four months typhoid fever killed 1.5 per cent. of the soldiers encamped in this country during the war with Spain. Influenza and pneumonia killed 1.4 per cent. of the soldiers in our camps in 1918 and it also covered a period of four months.”
The Bureau of the Census has made the following report concerning influenza deaths in the United States: