The impact of Spanish influenza on the world and the Ottoman Empire

One of the biggest disasters of 20th century is the pandemic disease that broke out towards the end of the First World War. The pandemic disease which emerged in Kansas City in the spring of 1918 and called Spanish flu not only affected the First World War but also led the death of millions. Much social mobility resulted from wartime caused this epidemic influenza to spread world widely easily. In this era, many people were called to arms or forced to move as refugee. In order to prevent the pandemic, new inoculations and drugs were tested, but these attempts failed to prevent the spread of the flu.Despite the disagreement in the number of the world wide death resulted from this disease, it can be said that number of death was approximately 50 millions. The average number of death in the world per thousand was between 2,5 and 5. Apart from the demographic catastrophe of flu, the armies were so affected from this flu that this pandemic played a considerable role in the end of the war.As the Spanish flu affected almost all the world, the Ottoman State suffered from it. Probably, the pandemic disease entered into the Ottoman from Europe and it led cases or death in many places of Anatolia. So as to prevent this pandemic influenza, some precautions such as closing the public domains like schools were taken. On account of the fact that present sources are inadequate, it is impossible to say the exact number of dead people of this pandemic. Nevertheless, According to the İstanbul Şehremaneti, 6403 people died in only Istanbul. The average number of death per thousand was 5,6.