The Definitive History of the Flu

Champagne remedies, sneezing ferrets, and thousands of years of havoc

The Greek historian Thucydides reports on a “three-year plague,” and the Greek physician Hippocrates refers to the “Cough of Perinthus” — perhaps the first mentions of the flu, though medical historians are still debating that.

Italy and France experience a flu-like epidemic. Though early observers often can’t distinguish between the flu and other diseases (like cholera and the Plague), historians today believe this outbreak is the first well-documented record of a true flu “epidemic” — meaning that many more people than usual get the disease, and at roughly the same time and place.

The term “influenza” (Italian for “influence”) comes into use to describe the illness, either because the disease is associated with cold weather (influenze di freddo) or with the misalignment of stars and planets. By 1504, the term is being seen in English. Of course, flu diseases have been called many other names over the years (“murre,” “sweate,” “grippe,” “epidemic catarrh”), and been given nicknames (“the newe acquaintance,” “the Naples Soldier,” “Flanders grippe,” “knock me down fever”).