FUNNY flu... facts

Structure of the influenza virion.

The word “influenza” comes from the Italian influentia because of the belief that the influence of the planets, stars, and moon caused the flu— reasons for sudden and widespread sickness


“Cures” for the Spanish flu included drinking whiskey, smoking cigars, eating milk toast, gargling with salt water, getting fresh air, and partaking of interesting concoctions like “Grippura.” Some doctors doused their patients with icy water while others “bled” their patients. Yet other doctors tried surgery by slicing open a patient’s chest, spreading his ribs, and extracting pus and blood from the pleural cavity (the cavity surrounding the lungs), which was almost always fatal in flu victims


The English adopted the word “influenza” in the mid-eighteenth century, while the French called it la grippe from gripper, meaning “to grasp or hook.” There is also a similar-sounding phrase in Arabic, anf-al-anza, which means “nose of the goat,” used because goats were thought to be carriers of the disease


Viruses (from the Latin virus meaning “poison, slimy liquid”) are much simpler than bacteria. Viruses are just inert bundles of genetic material encased in a shell called a capsid or a fatty membrane called an envelope. The flu, for example, is caused by an RNA virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae (from the Greek orthos meaing “straight” and myxa meaning “mucous”).

The source of flu vaccines are chickens and, consequently, vaccines can be dangerous to people who are allergic to eggs. Those people should never receive the injectable or nasal spray vaccine without doctor’s approval