Page 7 - July on-line VV_Neat

Veno’s and Oxo both claimed their products could protect people from the flu.
Note Veno’s use of a testimonial from a WWI soldier.

Positive changes
Despite the appalling high death tolls, pandemics – as was shown in my article last month about
plagues throughout the centuries – have usually brought in their wake positive changes in this coun-
try: changes to working lives, health, social and living conditions, technology, architecture, art and
literature. The silver-lining of the Spanish flu was the NHS and an expansion of our welfare state.

The lesson that health authorities took away from the 1918-1919 catastrophe was that it was no longer
reasonable to blame an individual for catching an infectious disease. The 1920s saw many governments
embrace the concept of socialised medicine – health care for all, delivered free at the point of delivery.
Russia was the first country to introduce such a scheme and others in Western Europe followed, result-
ing in our NHS in 1948.

Recognition that contagious diseases didn’t respect borders led to the need to co-ordinate public
health between countries. An international bureau for fighting epidemics opened in Vienna in 1919
and was a forerunner to the World Health Organisation, formed in 1946.

Though it’s far too early to say what will come out of our current pandemic, there are already indica-
tions that an urgent and extensive overhaul of social care and the value of the NHS and key workers
will be recognised.
Next month’s article will be considerably more light-hearted and tells of a picnic not far from our village