The supposed bird flu epidemic revived the memories and fears of another which was a reality in 1918.There were terrible costs to humanity, when the Spanish Lady danced to a macabre tune.

In October of 1918, the last year of the Great War,the 75,496 occupants of Wellington, the capital of the then numerically small Dominion of New Zealand - about one million people - were attacked by a different enemy to that which its young men had flocked to join the New Zealand Army to fight for the British Empire against the dreaded Hun.

This rather insidious enemy apparently had some intriguing names - Plague of the Spanish Lady; La Grippe; and the Spanish Influenza.

The intrusion of this disease at the end of 1918 resulted in days when Wellington resembled a ghost town.

This particularly virulent and extremely contagious strain of influenza landed in 1918 and apparently set in train, what was described as,an unrelenting series of hammer blows to the city's solar plexus.

On a week day afternoon there were no regular trams running,no shops open, and the only traffic was a van with a white sheet tied to its side with a big red cross painted on it - serving as both an ambulance and a hearse, whatever was needed at the time!

It was reported that stores,schools,factories, theatres and offices shut their doors. When trams did run, they were on a vastly reduced service - drivers and conductors were not spared in this little city of death!

The medical services were already short staffed because of the war effort - doctors and nurses being funnelled off to Europe. Wellington Hospital became swamped with patients.

Victims received rudimentary and basic relief for fevers, hacking coughs and lung infections, which in the worst of cases made breathing an agonising struggle, before choking and finally dying - their corpses reportedly taking on a bluish hue.

Church halls were commandeered and tents were even pitched in the hospital grounds. Thousands of residents stayed home behind closed doors, only venturing out for essential items. Some daring folk gamely visited government inhalation centres to obtain atomised concoctions which when ingested disinfected breathing passages - though it was doubtful what thrived more in there?

Indoors, many residents pinned the traditional camphor bags to lapels and burned sulphor to disperse the invisible intruders, it was claimed.

At the beginning of the epidemic Wellington had 75,496 inhabitants, by the time it waned in December, the city had counted a terrible cost of 1406 dead,thousands severely ill and many more battled and finally succumbed to the influenza by summer's end.

In that small nation of 1918, the pattern of the influenza's spread mirrored transmission elsewhere. It knew no bounds, urban poor living in unsanitary conditions fell like ninepins, and just when the more affluent felt safe and thought they had escaped - they too fell!

The epidemic is thought to have followed the main lines of communication - spreading on a north- south axis, probably through the main trunk railway line from Auckland to Wellington, after the "carriers", returning servicemen from the war, for example, crossed the wharves on their way home.

Some ships that arrived in Auckland had brought a number of influenza victims home, and symptoms were also evident in that city as well before the troopship Niagra arrived from San Francisco, with New Zealand Prime Minister Massey and a number of his cabinet returning from meetings in London also aboard.They were keen to get back to the business of running a country under attack from a different more insidious foe.

The Niagra had signalled that it had reportable sickness aboard, one crewman had already died,with another hundred ill and getting worse, and a further hundred,all passengers needing hospital care.

Instead of being quarantined as was normal under similar circumstances, the Niagra was permitted to berth - a most negligent decision in hindsight.The Spanish Lady performed her deadly dance, as later events would show.While there were conventions on how to handle Smallpox, the make-up of the Spanish influenza was not understood. By the time the influenza had worked its way through New Zealand society, more than 6,700 people had died - 5,516 Europeans and about 2,160 Maori, mostly in rural areas.

Later figures, however,suggested the death toll could have been as high as 8,600 - in a population of only 1,000,000 at that time.It was was still a developing country growing from a former frontier -type origin. No explanation was given or has been given since,why Maori death rates were seven times as high as European.

There was one positive spin-off from the deadly epidemic - a health department division was created for Maori hygine in 1920.

There was little more that could have been done at the time, considering the known drugs of that time,in 1918.

It has been accepted, that there were 21 million fatalities in a total world population of 720 million.The supposed bird flu is considered to have potential for similar fatalities, because of modern transportation abilities, but modern medicine may curb such fatalities.One hopes that the descendants of the Spanish Lady will not be able to dance to a similar macabre tune.