Compass: The Mystery of the 1889 ‘Russian Flu’ with Professor Sarah Callahar and Radu Golban

The Mystery of the 1889 ‘Russian Flu’ and its link to COVID-19:
Professor Sally Carraher from the Department of Anthropology of the University of Alaska Anchorage, an expert on the history of the Russian Flu and co-publisher of the book “From Miasma to Microscopes: The Russian Influenza in Hamilton” (2011), is our guest in Compass. Her book provides insights and remarkable interesting findings of this enigma.
Some scientists think that the mysterious 'Russian flu' was actually a coronavirus. This respiratory illness emerged in Russia and then spread rapidly across the globe, triggering at least three waves of infection over the course of several years and caused one million deaths worldwide. Experts are comparing the symptoms and the neurological involvement which lasted for years, with the COVID-19 pandemic. It is generally accepted that the causative agent of Russian influenza was Myxovirus influenzae, the virus identified for all influenza pandemics since the “Spanish flu” of 1918. The current pandemic is also compared by several scientist with the Encephalitis Lethargica, which is associated with the Spanish Flu. Professor Berchet from the Pasteur Institute explains that the Russian Flu had been rather caused by a coronavirus and was just influenza-like.
One aspect during the Russian Flu is noteworthy. One of the largest pharmaceutical campaigns before promoting the testing and vaccination during COVID-19, was the advertisement for the Carbolic Smoke Ball. People had been encouraged to inhale from this little rubber balls the vapours of carbolic acid (phenol). The manufacturer promised the people a beneficial effect of the use of the Carbolic Smoke Ball and even promised a remedy in case someone may get sick. They offered 100 Punds, a considerable amount at the time. While physicians never heard about this health scheme, law-students in Anglo-Saxon law learn it, since it was a breakthrough in common law, admitting by advertising a contractual situation.
As we have seen in previous interviews in Compass, the famous British neurologist Edwin Bramwell observed in 1923 during the similar pandemic of the Spanish Flu, that chemical lesions of the nasal epithelial cells with croton oil also a phenol make people vulnerable for an infection with an unknown virus. He made the same observations with mechanical lesions of these cells by nasal swabbing. Professor Paul Foley, a former guest in Compass, one of the leading experts in Encephalitis lethargica confirmed that nasal swabbing had been very frequent during the Spanish Flu, although this testing made no real sense to him.
Also the author of “Awakenings”, Professor Oliver Sacks wrote in his book about a mysterious disease which appears out of the blue, lasts for a while then disappears again. He also observed that in all cases experts almost forget about it and that the diseases resurrects with a different name after few decades or centuries.
Other experts describe how after such a pandemic with neurological involvements the society was rapidly changing, it gave rise to appearance of radicalism in politics, how it led to wars and a cognitive decline of the people became very prevalent.