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Cold Comfort
some solace to know that all the efforts that have been made have perhaps been of some assistance.
October 7, 1918; Harold Rugg's journal:
In a.m., mama and I went after butternuts, and at
2:00 I went to Ludlow on train and then by stagecoach
to Norwich. A lovely ride, as the autumn colors
were wonderful. Find that there have been 14
deaths in Norwich to date from Spanish influenza.
Clarence Gowdy, one of the mailmen, died today.
Eight soldiers, four students, one faculty, and one
townsman have succumbed.
October 8, 1918; from Harris Hatch to President Hopkins:
It was most thoughtful and kind of you to write us
as you did in your letter of October 2nd. Mrs. Hatch
and I both appreciate the attention.
We are in hope Tracy will not have the influenza and that if he does, everything will go well. We understood from his letters that there is quite a good deal of the epidemic in the College. Philadelphia is full of it, but so far it has not touched us.
October 13, 1918; Harold Rugg's journal:
Recitations began after a vacation of two weeks,
during which time the boys have been drilling
eight hours a day. Shall have to keep reference
room open evenings now. I have been over
to library every night the last two weeks except
Saturday nights. Shall have to continue
doing evening work because of the lack of
student help.
October 14, 1918; Harold Rugg's journal:
Donald Powell, one of my advisees, returned
today, and as his room had been given up I
took him in for the night.
November 11, 1918; Harold Rugg's journal:
Wakened at 6:45 by whistles and bells announcing
peace. Classes called off at 10:00
and SATC were given freedom at 3:00. An
auto parade of 500 to 700 cars went past College
Hall. It took over an hour for them to
pass. I closed the library for two hours. The
new news too good to be true.
This is not a European battlefield but the Dartmouth football field—the site of trench-digging exercises for members of the Student Army Training Corps. The fact that students were kept outside at such activities during the height of the flu epidemic was credited with keeping the number of cases down.
"The doctors stated that
plenty of fresh air and
outdoor work were the
best antidotes for the
disease, and I therefore
arranged with Captain
Patterson to put in
practically the whole
time from daylight until
dark in military drill
until October 10."
—President Hopkins
Lessons learned from 1918
Dr. Cleto DiGiovanni, a 1956 Dartmouth
College graduate, is trying to determine what
lessons the 1918 flu holds for us today. As
part of his work with the Defense Threat Reduction
Agency in the Department of Defense,
he joined forces with several University
of Michigan medical historians to investigate
how some communities escaped the
flu—suffering few cases and no more than
one flu-related death in the fall of 1918.
They reported in the December 2006 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that coordination among public agencies was essential to an effective public health response and
Above and below are four of the five Dartmouth students who died of flu—clockwise from the top left, Harold Mooney, Richard Campbell, Theodore Wadleigh, and Spencer Slawson. One member of the faculty also died of the flu.
