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"Folk äro också rädda för den smygande sjukdomen [...]" : en studie om spanska sjukans förlopp i Karlskoga kommun år 1918. / "People are also afraid of the insidious disease […]" : A study on the spanish flu in Karlskoga municipality during the yearof 1918.

The swedish local history research on the spanish flu is relatively scarce. The research that is available today seems to be largely centered around accounts for morbidity and mortality as a result of the epidemic. This however, has also been an important part of the research, to provide a demographic depiction of the mortality. Another important element in the present study has also been to account for the authorities' actions during the epidemic, something that is largely lacking in research. In light of the prevailing Corona epidemic and the lack of local historical research on the course of the Spanish flu in Sweden, the present study has aimed to examine the course of the epidemic in the undersigned home municipality of Karlskoga, during the epidemic in 1918. With the use of the death and funeral books of the Karlskoga parish, old issues of the newspaper ”Karlskoga Tidning” and the Health Care Board's statistics and protocols, the undersigned has, through this case study, tried to provide a quantitative aswell as a qualitative depiction of the epidemic year. The study evince that at least 43 people died in the municipality, the majority of whom were men under 40 years old. It also turned out that the workers' areas in Bofors were home to 36% of those who died during the epidemic months, no other area in the municipality had such high mortality rate. The study also indicates that the authorities in Karlskoga considered the epidemic to be of great danger. Hence, they seemed to have used the available information channels at the time, as to prevent the spread of infection. In this research it is noteworthy that as of today, a hundred years later, similar approaches are used to limit the spread of infection.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-83215
Date January 2020
CreatorsWestin, Tim
PublisherKarlstads universitet, Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap (from 2013)
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageSwedish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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