Halloween is the time of spooky skeletons. Whether it be Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas or the 10-foot inflatable skeleton sold at Walmart, skeletons are the rulers of Halloween. However, skeletons are fantastic Halloween decorations in science and the key to uncovering mysteries from a century ago. For example, a study from McMaster University and the University of Colorado uses skeletons to shed light on the Spanish Influenza epidemic.
Amanda Wissler and Sharon N. DeWitte are anthropologists who took a step back from the COVID-19 pandemic to compare it with the pandemic of the last century, the Spanish Flu. The Spanish Flu epidemic ravaged the entire world from 1918 to 1920. At the same time as the First World War, The Great Influenza, as it became known, killed more people than the war β with estimates ranging from 20 million to over 50 million. In particular, records of the time show that more young adults were affected than any other section of the population. Hence, life expectancy in America dropped by 12 years. As a result, the graph of those who died from the epidemic looks like a “W” rather than the traditional “U.” A βUβ graph correlates with higher mortality rates among the very young and very old. The βW,β however, sees the same traits as the βU,β but also sees a large number of young adults also dying from the virus. The symptoms of those sick with the flu match that of today: sore throat, chills, fever, and deterioration of the lungs β the most deadly part of the disease β reported esteemed disease historian Alfred Crosby.
Despite the recorded values of young adults being more susceptible to the disease, Wissler and DeWitte sought to challenge this long-standing assumption. They believed those with underlying symptoms to be more sensitive to receiving the disease and experiencing more dangerous symptoms β an idea all too familiar in the post-COVID-19 world. They used techniques for post-mortem tuberculosis or cancer diagnoses or other stressors like nutritional deficiencies to test their hypothesis. In those diseases, the shin bones of infected individuals have small bumps on them; with a way to prove their hypothesis, Wissler and DeWitte found themselves in the shadow of Halloween β searching for skeletons.
Wissler and DeWitte approached the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to find their skeletons. Cleveland has a vast collection of 3,000 skeletons, all meticulously labeled by name and information about when and how they died. The researchers examined 81 skeletons of individuals who died from ages 18 to 80, with Wissler noting she treated the skeletons with “great respect.” Among the 81 individuals, 26 died between 20 and 40. To ensure the validity of their results, DeWitte and Wissler also examined the skeletons of individuals who passed before the influenza outbreak.
The results Dewitte and Wissler found confirmed their theory. Rather than the most robust trend predicting if an individual died of the flu during the outbreak, the study found that those “frail or unhealthy individuals were more likely to die during the pandemic than those who were not frail.” While the “W” shaped graph stays true, rather than be because of the age, Wissler and DeWitte showed it was their frailty.
Despite their findings, DeWitte and Wissler found a new question: why the “W” shaped graph of the ages of when individuals died? Peter Palese, a flu expert at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, proposed an answer. He says that the high death rates of young children and older adults are due to DeWitte and Wissler’s findings. For the large number of young adults who succumbed to the disease, Palese explains that it is most likely those individuals did not face exposure to a similar virus before the influenza outbreak. Because of this, they did not have the resistance that many full adults had.
The study by Wissler and DeWitte showed that skeletons are not just for Halloween decorations and spooky tales but can be used to uncover critical scientific insights. Who knew that examining the bones of the deceased could reveal so much about a pandemic from a century ago? It’s like something out of a horror movie, but with science! So, next time you see a skeleton, don’t be scared; remember that it might be the key to unlocking a mystery or two!
