Loring Miner

Loring Miner (* 1860 ; † 1935 ) was a country doctor in Haskell County , Kansas . He was believed to be the first doctor to report the Spanish flu outbreak in 1918 .

Loring Miner had practiced in Haskell County since 1885. He had previously studied at Ohio University in Athens , Ohio . In Haskell County, he owned not only a doctor's office, but also a drugstore and grocery store. He was also a member of the Democratic Party and has held various political offices at the county level. Miner's training as a doctor took place at a time when pathogens were largely unknown. Out of personal interest, however, he worked intensively on it and set up a laboratory in his practice, which was unusual for the times. He noticed in January and February 1918 that cases of flu were increasing among his patients, who came from an area of ​​more than a hundred square miles and some of them lived on very isolated farms. These cases of flu were unusually severe and occasionally fatal. Although the flu was not a reportable disease, he contacted the US Public Health Service but received no advice or assistance. However, his evidence of an accumulation of unusually severe flu cases was published in the Public Health Report . Loring Miner's publications are therefore of importance in the history of medicine . They helped pinpoint the possible origin of the 1918-1920 pandemic .

literature

• John M. Barry: The Great Influenza. The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History . Penguin Books, New York 2004, ISBN 0-670-89473-7

Web links

• Loring Miner in the database of Find a Grave (English)