Post-Influenza Syndrome: Exploring the Association between Suicide and Influenza in New South Wales, 1919-21

Abstract

The official recognition of 'post-COVID syndrome' in 2021, a condition with debilitating physical and mental symptoms including suicidal ideation, calls for analysis of earlier viral pandemics. To test for possible links between the 1918-19 influenza pandemic and suicide, this paper focuses on the state of New South Wales and draws on coronial and newspaper evidence. These sources reveal sixteen cases in which medical and lay witnesses associated acute and post-acute symptoms of influenza with the impulse to self-harm. This feature of post-war trauma, overlooked by historians of the First World War, highlights the capacity of historical research to inform current-day analysis of viral infections' physical, emotional, and psychological sequelae. Show more