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Outbreaks INFLUENZA AND ELECTRICITY in the atmosphere.” Physicians puzzled over
Since we know about the electrical nature influenza’s capricious spread. For example,
of illness of the sun, we can make some interesting ob- William Beveridge, author of a 1975 textbook on
accompanied servations. The years 1645-1715 were a period influenza, noted: “The English warship Arachne
each step that astronomers call the Maunder minimum, was cruising off the coast of Cuba without any
toward when the sun was very quiet. Astronomers ob- contact with land. No less than 114 men out of a
served no sunspots during that time span, and crew of 149 fell ill with influenza and only later
greater the northern lights were nonexistent; then, in was it learnt that there had been outbreaks in
electrification. 1715, sunspots reappeared, as did the northern Cuba at the same time.” 1
lights. Sunspot activity increased, reaching a During the First World War, governments
high in 1727, and in 1728, influenza appeared on both sides of the conflict installed antennas
in waves on every continent. Sunspot activities that eventually blanketed the earth with strong
became more violent until they peaked in 1738, radio signals. In 1918, disaster struck. The
when physicians reported flu in both man and Spanish flu sickened an estimated five hundred
animals, including dogs, horses and birds, espe- million people—about one-third of the planet’s
cially sparrows. By some estimates, two million population—and killed as many as fifty million
people perished during the ten-year pandemic. people, more than the Black Death of the four-
These and other facts about the relation- teenth century. Those living on military bases,
ship of influenza to disturbances in electricity where the antennas were routinely installed,
come from a remarkable book, The Invisible were the most vulnerable. A common symptom
Rainbow, by Arthur Firstenberg. Firstenberg was bleeding—from the nostrils, the gums, ears,
1
chronicles the history of electricity in the U.S. skin, stomach, intestines, uterus, kidneys and
and throughout the world, along with the out- brain. Many died of hemorrhage in the lungs, the
breaks of illness that accompanied each step victims literally drowning in their own blood.
toward greater electrification. The first stage Tests revealed a decreased ability for the blood
involved the installation of telegraph lines. By to coagulate, possibly the result of flu patients
1875, these formed a spider web over the whole receiving large doses of aspirin.
earth totaling seven hundred thousand miles, The year 1957 marked the installation of
with enough copper wire to encircle the globe radar worldwide. The “Asian” influenza pan-
almost thirty times. With it came a new disease demic began in February 1957 and lasted for a
called neurasthenia. year. A decade later, the U.S. launched twenty-
Outside the U.S., scientists recognized eight satellites into the Van Allen belts as part
electricity as one of neurasthenia’s causes. Like of the Initial Defense Communication Satellite
those suffering today from “chronic fatigue,” Program (IDCSP), ushering in the “Hong Kong”
patients felt weak, exhausted and unable to con- flu pandemic, which began in July 1968. As
centrate. They had headaches, dizziness, tin- Firstenberg observes, “In each case—in 1889,
nitus, floaters in the eyes, a racing pulse, pains 1918, 1957 and 1968—the electrical envelope
in the heart region and palpitations; they were of the earth. . . was suddenly and profoundly
depressed and had anxiety attacks. Dr. George disturbed,” and along with it, the electrical
Miller Beard noted that the disease spread along circuits in the human body.
the routes of railroads and telegraph lines. It Western medicine pays scant attention to
often resembled the common cold or influenza the electrical nature of living things—plants,
and usually seized people in the prime of life. animals and humans—but mountains of
The year 1889 marked the beginning of the evidence indicate that faint currents govern
modern electrical era and also of a deadly flu everything that happens in the body to keep us
pandemic, which followed the advent of elec- alive and healthy. From the coagulation of the
tricity throughout the globe. Says Firstenberg, blood, to energy production in the mitochondria,
“Influenza struck explosively and unpredict- even to small amounts of copper in the bones,
ably, over and over in waves until early 1894. It which create currents for the maintenance of
was as if something fundamental had changed bone structure—all can be influenced by the
16 Wise Traditions SUMMER 2020