Pandemic in print: the spread of influenza in the Fin de Siècle

The rapid spread of the 1889–1890 influenza epidemic was widely reported in the periodical press. As Londoners read that another European capital had succumbed, they were struck that the illness was not only travelling as fast as the news, but was also moving along the same routes. Although medical science quickly resolved that a germ was the cause of the illness, its mild nature but widespread social impact lead many to suspect that it was actually caused by newspaper hype. This link between the press and the illness made the epidemic seem a curious symptom of the modern communications technologies that increasingly defined the age.