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Red Cross nurses preparing bandages during the influenza epidemic of 1918. In the final year of the First World War a particularly virulent strain of influenza, the Spanish Flu, made its way into America. During a year long epidemic, it infected more than 25 million people, nearly /4 of the total population, and took an estimated 548,000 lives. The Flu struck hardest in the heavily populated, urban areas, and Detroit was no exception. Because it was a major transport center for troops both arriving and leaving for the front, and because people lived and worked in cramped conditions, the city was hit particularly hard. |