The recent outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) served as a frightening reminder of the threat posed by infectious diseases. Emanating from China, SARS spread quickly through eastern Asia and across the Pacific to Canada. Worried members of the public began donning face masks and avoiding public places. The World Health Organization even warned international travellers to steer clear of Toronto. In the end, the Canadian death toll from SARS was low (two dozen victims, all of them in Ontario), but the episode was eerily reminiscent of an earlier era when a much more serious disease outbreak ravaged the country, and the world.

At the end of World War One a mysterious illness appeared among soldiers and sailors returning to North America from the war zone in Europe. With the usual fever and achiness, it resembled ordinary flu. But in many cases it grew worse until patients became critically ill, fighting for their lives against a deadly virus no one had seen before. The infection was characterized by fever, headache, sore throat, cough and general soreness and lassitude. Then, in fatal cases, a killer pneumonia set in. The lungs filled with fluid and fevered victims died gasping for breath. This was the Spanish flu, so-called because Spain was the first country where the outbreak became public. In fact, its origins remain uncertain, though its impact does not. Before it burned itself out, the epidemic killed an estimated 21 million people worldwide, more than had died in the war just ended. And unlike other flu strains, this one tended to kill not the old or the very young, but people who were otherwise healthy and in the prime of life.

Along with the rest of the world, Canada was hit hard by the epidemic. By the time it was over, 50,000 Canadians died. The first case appeared in June 1918 among demobilizing troops arriving in Quebec from England. In British Columbia, news of the first case appeared in the daily press on 5 October. By the middle of the month, 23 British Columbians were already dead and the number of reported cases had climbed past 700. Victoria had a thousand cases by the end of the month. The disease spread across the province by steamboat and rail line. Crowded bunkhouses in logging and mining camps were a particular breeding ground. At the remote, north coastal copper mining community of Anyox, for example, 28 miners died in a two-week period.

Response to the outbreak was swift, but largely futile. Within three weeks many municipalities had "closed"; that is, authorities shut schools and churches and banned all public meetings. Shops closed early, pool halls and theatres emptied. Vancouver at first resisted pressure to close, but eventually it, too, shut down most public activity. Closure lasted about a month.

The medical community was powerless to effect a cure. There was no drug or vaccine, patients could only stay in bed taking fluids and waiting it out. When hospitals filled to overflowing, patients were taken to firehalls, skating rinks, school gymnasiums and military barracks. In Vancouver, a 150-bed temporary hospital was erected on the grounds of the General Hospital solely for flu victims. On the advice of public health officials, people wore gauze masks over their mouths, doused themselves in camphor, avoided wearing low necklines and having wet feet, and kept their windows open. Cinammon was believed to be an effective cure, as was garlic and whiskey. In the absence of any recognized cure, home remedies abounded. But it was all to little effect.

By the time the sickness faded away at the end of March, 1919, about one-third of the population of British Columbia had come down with it. The final death toll in Vancouver alone reached 900. There were so many funerals in the city that winter that it was hard to find fresh flowers to bury a relative. Province-wide, perhaps 4,000 people died. The Aboriginal population was particularly hard hit; more than 1,140 died across the province, a death toll that was more than nine times greater than the non-Aboriginal population.