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Review
. 2010 Nov;4(6):327-37.
doi: 10.1111/j.1750-2659.2010.00148.x.

Historical thoughts on influenza viral ecosystems, or behold a pale horse, dead dogs, failing fowl, and sick swine

David M Morens  1 , Jeffery K Taubenberger
Affiliations
Review

Historical thoughts on influenza viral ecosystems, or behold a pale horse, dead dogs, failing fowl, and sick swine

David M Morens et al. Influenza Other Respir Viruses. 2010 Nov.

Abstract

Objectives: To understand human influenza in a historical context of viral circulation in avian species, mammals, and in the environment.

Design: Historical review.

Setting: Global events in a variety of circumstances over more than 3,000 years time.

Sample: Comprehensive review of the historical literature including all major publications on pandemic and panzootic influenza.

Main outcome measures: Influenza pandemics, panzootics, major epidemics and epizootics, and instances of interspecies transmission of influenza A.

Results: Extensive documentation of human and animal influenza over many centuries suggests that influenza A viruses have adapted to a variety of species and environmental milieu and are capable of switching between many different hosts under widely varying circumstances.

Conclusions: The genetic elements of influenza A viruses circulate globally in an extensive ecosystem comprised of many avian and mammalian species and a spectrum of environments. Unstable gene constellations found in avian species become stable viruses only upon switching to secondary hosts, but may then adapt and circulate independently. It may be desirable to think of influenza A viruses as existing and evolving in a large ecosystem involving multiple hosts and environments. Implications for understanding human influenza are discussed.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse), by Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847–1917), ca. 1896, oil on canvas, Cleveland Museum of Art. Katherine Anne Porter’s (1890–1980) classic novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider, 2 which describes both the 1918 death of her lover and her own near death from influenza has fixed in the imagination of many readers an association between the chilling biblical imagery of the “pale horse” (Revelation 6:8) and the enormous death toll of the 1918–1919 pandemic.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Influenza pandemics since 1510 [modified from (5)].
Figure 3
Figure 3
The first page of Chapter 17, “On the catarrh and coughing epidemic”, in Daniel Sennert’s account of the 1580 influenza pandemic. 48 Sennert refers obliquely to a “coryza of chickens”, but it is not known whether avian influenza occurred during the pandemic.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The Boston fire of 9 November 1872 burned down much of the financial district of Boston. 67 Among other factors, the devastation of the fire has been attributed to the ongoing influenza panzootic (Boston, 11 November 1872). Because most of the equine work force was incapacitated, fire stations throughout the United States recruited teams of men to pull fire wagons. The slow response times of the Boston teams are believed by many to have led to the fire getting out of control. Above, onlookers on Devonshire Street assemble around Steamer Number 10, from the Fire House on Mount Vernon Street. At far right a fireman with a hose sprays the ruins.
Figure 5
Figure 5
During a 1900–1901 equine influenza epizootic, the US champion racing greyhound For Freedom died of “an attack of the epizooty, which is prevalent here among horses” (The San Francisco Call, 11 November 1901).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

    1. Fleming G. Animal Plagues: Their History, Nature, and Prevention. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871.
    1. Porter K. Pale Horse, Pale Rider; Three Short Novels. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939.
    1. Koch R. Die Aetiologie der Milzbrand‐Krankheit, begründet auf die Entwicklungsgeschichte der Bacillus Anthracis. Beiträge zur Biologie der Pflanzen (Breslau [Wrocław]) 1876; 2:277–310.
    1. Morens DM, Taubenberger JK, Fauci AS. The persistent legacy of the 1918 influenza virus. N Engl J Med 2009; 361(3):225–229. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Taubenberger JK, Morens DM. Pandemic influenza – including a risk assessment of H5N1. Rev Sci Tech 2009; 28(1):187–202. - PMC - PubMed

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