File under: The more things change, the more they stay the same: “The most astonishing thing about the pandemic was the complete mystery which surrounded it. *** Science, which by patient and painstaking labor has done so much to drive other plagues to the point of extinction, has thus far stood powerless before it. There is doubt about the causative agent and the predisposing and aggravating factors. There has been a good deal of theorizing about these matters, and some good research, but no common agreement has been reached with respect to them.”
That passage, which refers to the influenza pandemic of 1917-18, is from this scientific paper (the first page of which is pictured below) published in the journal Science on May 30, 1919–a paper that is just as relevant today as it was 101 years ago.