evidence: That soldier in the morgue was only one of the 675,000 people estimated to have died of flu or pneumonia in the United States in the fall of 1918 and the winter of 1919. For comparison: Less than a fifth that many Americans died in World War I. Globally, fifty million people or more succumbed during the pandemic. Modern antiviral drugs for the flu and antibiotics for the secondary bacterial infection that causes pneumonia might have kept more people alive, as would have an appropriate flu vaccine. But the doctors of the time—working when germ theory was still young—had none of the modern drug armament. Their vaccines were useless, and they had no idea they were fighting a virus. [...] Yet human nature being what it is, some people came out looking worse for the experience. In San Francisco, the facemask became the weapon of choice in the city’s crusade against the pandemic. The masks were uncomfortable, says Navarro, and women complained they didn’t look fashionable. By late October, all citizens were required to wear them in public: Mayor James Rolph went so far as to say that "conscience, patriotism, and self-protection demand immediate and rigid compliance." People who refused to wear their masks risked being fined and arrested, a threat that surely rang hollow after Mayor Rolph and Health Officer Dr. William C. Hassler were photographed by police at a boxing match not wearing theirs.