Kōrero: Epidemics

This poster, published by the New Plymouth Public Health Committee, gives detailed instructions to those nursing influenza patients in 1918. Cases are classified as mild, serious, extreme or ‘delirium’. Listen to people who lived through the pandemic describing flu patients suffering from delirium.

Transcript

[Woman speaking] And the thing was, they came in with terrific temperatures, and if we couldn't get those temperatures down, they dropped suddenly – below subnormal – and they started delirium. And once they got very delirious, we just couldn't save them, and there was no way of bringing the temperatures down then except by cold sponging. And that had to be done by somebody with experience, you see, otherwise they'd get an awful shock if it's badly done and chills as well. So I'm trying to keep the patients moderately clean, and then when they got really delirious, keeping them in bed. And the noise of the delirium at night was terrific.

[Man speaking] And he went raving mad one night before they took him away. He was running around the room with a knife; he just couldn't control himself. So they came and took him away to the hospital. Next morning they came over and told me poor old Jack had died, so that was one of my mates who went.