One hundred years later it’s hard to imagine the crisis that enveloped the United States in October 1918; while most disasters are local, the Spanish flu pandemic gripped the nation from coast to coast. While there were no accurate daily tabulations of the effects on the general public, the Army released numbers showing its toll on a group that should have been the nation’s healthiest.

On Oct. 7, “The War Department authorizes the following statement from the office of the Surgeon General: Seventeen…