In the 1918 pandemic control was sought after, as each wave of the infl uenza outbreak proved deadlier than the previous. Communication between the medical community, the government, media and the public was non-existent. Because of the war, information concerning the infl uenza was blocked, except for neutral Spain, which won the honor of being the name sake for this deadly virus: "The Spanish Infl uenza". In Britain, the battle between preventive and curative medicine raged. Previously these medical approaches were championed by the Medical Offi cers of Health in their efforts to prevent illness, and a therapeutic practice by private physicians [1] . The curative physicians, primarily general practitioners, were overwhelmed by the cases of infl uenza and relied on traditional methods to cope with the illness ranging from aspirin, quinine, opium, ammonia, alcohol, camphor, eucalyptus and iodine to musk, wet packs, blood serum, creosote, turpentine, cinnamon and turtle soup [1, 2] . At best, these prescriptions offered symptomatic relief, and some actually harmed the patients. In the United States, the 1918 pandemic was met with local quarantines, and large public gatherings were discouraged, and like Great Britain folk remedies were widely used [2, 8, 22] . There was no coordinated information from medical authorities to the communities on how to cope with this outbreak. The best advice that was offered then was common sense: bed rest and careful nursing to avoid complications, which is still issued today.