"It was a terrible thing. A patient would be walking around, they'd turn blue and they'd be dead. They would turn black as ink."
Dr. Damian Alagia, a survivor of the swine flu epidemic of 1918 which killed about 500,000 Americans.
In a 1976 interview, Dr. Alagia said lethargy, spitting up of blood and high temperatures were common symptoms of the disease, which struck unexpectedly and lasted about two weeks. Patients either recovered or died, according to Dr. Alagia who worked at Baltimore's St. Agnes Hospital during the epidemic.
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