“I made money quickly,” Charles Sligh explained, “The demands for flowers were often so great that all the florists in that community were exhausted their daily supply, and the prices of everything were then very high. »1 Along with florists, funeral directors and orderlies, they also took their toll during the First World War. “The funeral director half a block from my house had pine boxes on the sidewalk, in a high pile. Me and two of my friends would go over there and play on these boxes; it was like playing on the pyramids. »2 If business was booming for these professions, it was not because of the war. It was the result of an unexpected killer that swept across the world, claiming lives at an unprecedented rate. The 1918-1919 influenza pandemic extended its deadly tentacles all over the world, even to the most remote parts of the planet, killing fifty million people or perhaps even more. The flu killed more people in one year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century, and it killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS killed in twenty-four years. 3 The flu normally kills the elderly and infants, but this deadly and abnormal current has targeted young people, those in their twenties or thirties. This was the case of Jules Bergeret. Jules was a “big, burly man” who owned a tavern during the outbreak, and on December 11, he celebrated his 32nd birthday. Within two weeks, Jules, his mother, his sister and his 25-year-old wife all fell victim to the flu and by December 22, he was dead.4 The virus caused victims to bleed from the nose, ears and mouth ; some coughed so hard that autopsies would later show abdominal muscles and rib cartilage had been torn. Victims...... middle of paper......: An Inquiry, (1927)John. M. Barry, The Great Influenza, The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (New York: Penguin, 2004), 179 “Gauze Masks for Men at Harbor Ward Off Influenza,” Stars and Stripes, November 1, 1918. Nancy K. Bristow, American Pandemic, The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 193John. M. Barry, The Great Influenza, The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (New York: Penguin, 2004), 171Nancy K. Bristow, American Pandemic, The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic ( New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 156Anne A. Colon, “Experiences during the Epidemic”, The American Journal of Nursing (1919): 607 “Spanish Influenza”, Journal of the American Medical Association 71(8):660Katherine Anne Porter, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (US: The Modern Library, 1936), 255