Quote:
Originally Posted by ApS
Southern Bell operators wore masks during the 1918 Flu...
(Text):
Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph operators during the Spanish influenza epidemic in Jacksonville, Florida. Nearly one-third of the city's residents contracted influenza, according to historian Gary Mormino. [State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory (1918)] |
Thank you for finding this. Mask use even in surgery didn’t routinely start until 1898. So the fact that the general public would be wearing them for a pandemic only 20 years later is pretty remarkable as the science of infectious disease was still in its infancy. Frankly, now that we know as much as we do about transmission of respiratory illness and mask usage, it’s sad to see those that don’t support their use. The people in this old photo were basing much on sheer faith that the mask would work, not the science we have today.
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