Depression and the Spanish Flu Pandemic in the Pula Area

Spanish pandemic, the largest demographic disaster of the XX century, directly killed 50 – 100 million of the world population, either by its virus or by the consequential pneumonia. Alongside with the physical symptoms of the illness, the infected people could experience concurrent or subsequent mental disorders, primarily depression. However, the major problem with these early attempts to associate influenza with mental disorders is the lack of reliable statistics and standardized clinical diagnostic criteria. Therefore research results can only be approximative. This study attempts to explore if a larger number of patients in the Pula regional hospital diagnosed with mental disorders during 1919 can be related with a large number of patients diagnosed with the Spanish influenza during 1918 and 1919. In different words, the aim of the research was to examine if the same persons, after experiencing and been treated for influenza, checked in the hospital again, with a mental disorder diagnosis. If this can be confirmed, relationship between these two groups of illnesses could be probable.