Influenza is defined as an acute, usually epidemic illness, occurring in several forms, caused by numerous rapidly mutating viral strains and characterized by respiratory symptoms and prostration general. The Spanish Flu was more than just a normal epidemic, it was a pandemic. Outbreaks affect many people simultaneously in areas where the disease does not normally occur. A pandemic is an epidemic on a national, international or global scale. The Spanish flu was different from the seasonal flu in one particularly frightening way: it had an unusually high mortality rate among healthy adults aged 15 to 34 and reduced life expectancy by more than a decade . Such a high mortality rate has not occurred in this age group during an epidemic before or since the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic (Tumpey, 2005). The disease takes its name not from the country where it first appeared, but from the country where it was first widely reported. The Spanish did not participate in the First World War. They did not censor their newsprint as severely as those in countries involved in the war. When Spain was hit hard by the disease, it was associated with the "Spanish flu." The King of Spain contracted the flu himself. (History 2013) There are conflicting reports about the origin of the disease. A widely held belief is that it originated in a Kansas army camp where soldiers were trained before being sent to fight around the world. The second wave started in three port cities in three countries; this second wave was a deadly evolution of the first wave and marked the beginning of the deadly phase of the pandemic. (The Great Pandemic)The Spanish flu has not been observed since the last pandemic ended in 1919. In 1918, the federal government required a declaration...... middle of paper ......on http://www.flu.gov/pandemic/history/1918/index.htmlInfluenza Encyclopedia. (nd). The American influenza epidemic of 1918: a digital encyclopedia. Accessed October 27, 2013 from http://www.influenzaarchive.org/Jensenius;, JC (2006). Spanish flu vaccine. Science, 311(5767), 1552b-1552b. Retrieved October 27, 2013 from http://www.sciencemag.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/content/311/5767/1552.2 Reid, A. (1999). Origin and evolution of the hemagglutinin gene of the 1918 Spanish flu virus. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 96, 1651-1656. Steenhuysen, J. (January 10, 2011). Swine flu survivors developed antibodies against the super flu. Reuters. Retrieved October 27, 2013 from http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/10/us-flu-vaccine-idUSTRE70938S20110110Tumpey, TM (2005). Characterization of the reconstructed 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic virus. Science, 310(5745), 77-80.