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By now, you’re probably used to ‘flu season’ coming around every year.
到现在，你应该已经习惯了每年的‘流感季’。
These days, you can often avoid getting sick through vaccines, washing your hands, and avoiding sneezing co-workers.
目前，大家可以通过注射疫苗、勤洗手以及远离打喷嚏的同事等方式避免生病。
So while influenza can be dangerous, for most people it’s just another part of winter.
所以流行性感冒或许很危险，对大部分人而言，这是冬季的另一个部分。
But a hundred years ago, at the start of 1918, the normal flu season took a backseat to what became the deadliest outbreak in history:
但一百年前，自1918年起，普通的流感季退居二线，让位给了历史上最致命的疾病大爆发：
a global influenza pandemic that killed anywhere between 50 and 100 million people.
全球性流感大流行，其所到之处均造成五千万到一亿人的死亡。
Today, it’s called "the mother of all pandemics", and scientists think they’ve figured out what made it so deadly.
如今，这被称为“所有流行病之母”，科学家们认为他们已经知道全球性流感大流行如此致命的原因。
Epidemiologists still aren’t sure where this killer flu originated.
流行病学家仍然不确定这种流感杀手的起源。
Some say it started in China, while others point to early cases from a military training base in Kansas.
一些人认为这种流感起源于中国，而一些人则指出早期的感染案例源于堪萨斯州的一个军训基地。
But eventually, thanks to the war and global trade routes, it spread around the world and became known as — of all things — the Spanish flu.
但最终，由于战争和全球贸易，流感传遍世界并变成了著名的西班牙流感。
See, in 1918, a lot of the world was busy finishing World War I, and many countries were heavily censoring their news.
1918年，世界正忙于一战，并且许多国家删除了大量有关信息。
Anything that might hurt morale — like a deadly, fast-moving plague, for example — was kept from the media.
任何可能打击士气的消息—如传播迅速的致命瘟疫—都被隐瞒了下来。
But Spain, which wasn’t involved in the war, had no problem reporting the outbreak.
但并未参与战争的西班牙，却报道了流感爆发的消息。
So, people started calling it the Spanish Flu, since it seemed to have emerged there first — if only according to the news.
所以人们开始将其称之为西班牙流感，因为似乎流感首先从这里出现—如果仅凭新闻来判断的话。
Regardless of where it started, this flu was so devastating that some people believed it was biological warfare.
无论从何处起源，由于此次流感的毁灭性，一些人认为这是场生物战。
Some estimates say that one-third of the world population was infected, and that more than 2.5% of people died from it,
一些评估显示世界上有三分之一的人口都被感染了，其中超过2.5%的人死于此流感，
often through complications like pneumonia — including millions of 20- to 40-year-olds, who are usually the least vulnerable.
通常是死于并发症，如肺炎—其中包括数百万20到40岁的青壮年人—那些最不易受感染的人群。
A normal flu, meanwhile, is fatal in less than 0.1% of cases.
而普通流感的致命率不到0.1%。
To know why it was so dangerous, it helps to know a bit about the flu virus itself.
了解为什么流感这么危险，有助于对流感病毒本身的理解。
There are four subtypes of the influenza virus, called influenzae A-D, with influenza A being the main kind that causes pandemics.
流感病毒有四种子类型，被称为流感A至D，流感A是引起流行病的主要元素。
Those viruses are categorized by two surface proteins: hemagglutinin, which comes in 18 varieties, and neuraminidase, which comes in 11.
那些病毒被分为两种表面蛋白质：血球凝集素，会生成18种变种以及神经氨酸苷酶，生成11种变种。
They give flu strains names like 1918’s "H1N1", although there can still be variations among viruses with the same name.
他们将流感病毒株称为1918年的“H1N1”，虽然同名病毒仍是变种。
Your immune system builds antibodies that recognize all these proteins and protect you from multiple infections
大家的免疫系统建立起了抗体，能够辨识所有这些蛋白质并保护你不受多重感染
but unfortunately, the influenza virus mutates so quickly that your body doesn’t always recognize it.
但不幸的是，流感病毒变化非常快以至于你的身体不能很好地进行辨认。
Most mutations are small — enough that your body will probably still be able to defend itself. These tiny changes are called antigenic drifts.
多数突变都很小—小到你的身体足以能够抵抗。这些微小的变化被称为抗原漂移。
But the 1918 flu virus underwent a much bigger change — called an antigenic shift — that left people vulnerable.
但1918年的流感病毒经历了更大的变化—被称为抗原转移—易危害人类。
These big mutations result in viruses with very different or entirely new combinations of surface proteins,
这些大变种产生了一种病毒，一种带表面蛋白质的全新或不同组合，
and they’re different enough that most people have little or no natural immunity. Changes like these are what cause flu pandemics.
并且他们非常不同，以至于多数人对此有一些或完全没有自然免疫力。这些改变就导致了流感大流行。
Now, even though the virus changes all the time, scientists think that the first flu you encounter may have a life-long effect on the way your body fights new infections.
现在虽然病毒一直在变化，科学家们认为大家人生中所遇上的第一次流感可能在你的身体对抗新感染的道路上有着终身影响。
They call this idea the antigenic imprinting— or the "doctrine of original antigenic sin". Really.
他们将这种想法称为抗原性印记—或者“原始抗原痕迹主义”。真的。
It says that your immune system seems to remember your first influenza infection and will try to fight later flus using the same antibodies.
据说你的免疫系统能够记住你第一次所患的流感且会利用同种抗体对抗之后的流感。
So if you caught an H3-type flu as a child, you’re better able to protect yourself against other H3 flu viruses, even if some of its other proteins have changed.
所以孩时患上H3类型流感，你可以更好的保护自己对抗其他的H3类型流感，即使其中一些蛋白质有所变化。
But you probably wouldn’t do as well against, say, an H1-type virus. Which is exactly what happened 100 years ago.
但你或许无法很好的对抗H1类型病毒。100年前就发生了这种情况。
And it’s one reason why 20- to 40-year-olds were so likely to die during this outbreak, even though they’re usually the least affected.
这也就是大爆发时期，20-40岁的青壮年会为此死亡的唯一原因，即使他们是最不易感染的人群。
When they were younger, the so-called "Russian Flu" was the dominant strain — and that was probably the H3N8 variant.
当他们更年轻时，所谓的“俄罗斯流感”是主要菌株—这或许是H3N8变体。
Then, around 1900, the H1-type virus became dominant.
1900年左右，H1类型病毒成为主导。
And sometime right before 1918, another shift created the H1N1 strain that caused the pandemic and left young adults with almost no immunity.
1918年前，另一种变化创造了 H1N1菌株，导致了流行性疾病且年轻人对此几乎毫无免疫力。
Meanwhile, people older than 40 may have experienced an H1-type virus in their childhood, so they already had some protection against this new version.
而40多岁的人在童年已经经历过了H1类型病毒，所以他们已经有了些对抗这种新变体的保护。
On top of that, young adults also have especially strong immune systems,
除此之外，年轻人还有特别强的免疫系统，
which actually worked against them and caused a lot of people to die quickly after showing symptoms.
这实际上对他们并不利且还导致多人出现症状后马上死去。
These rapid deaths were likely caused by cytokine storms, which is an immune system response so intense it damages a patient’s tissues.
这种快速死亡由细胞素风暴引起，这是一种免疫系统反应，会对病人的组织造成伤害。
And the stronger your immune system, the more damage a cytokine storm can do.
你的免疫系统越强劲，细胞素风暴所造成的损害就越大。
So, 1918 was not a great time to be a young person.
所以，对于年轻人而言，1918并不是一个好年份。
After racing across the world, the deadly pandemic seemed to burn itself out after a year or so.
传遍全世界后，致命流行病似乎一年后就自行灭绝了。
Researchers think that, since so many people were infected in the first outbreak, enough of the population gained immunity to prevent further chaos.
研究者认为，由于很多人都在第一次大爆发中受到感染，已有足够的人口获得了预防未来流感爆发潮的免疫力。
The virus also probably mutated to a less deadly form — though, in general, scientists aren't certain what magical combination of mutations makes a flu more or less deadly.
病毒也可能会变异成稍弱形式—虽然科学家并不确信是什么样的突变神奇组合会导致致命的流感。
Either way, we don’t need to worry specifically about the Spanish flu these days.
不管怎样，如今我们不需担心西班牙流感了。
Many of today’s H1 viruses are actually descended from that 1918 virus —
如今多数H1病毒事实上都源于1918年的病毒—
which is partially why it’s called "the mother of all pandemics" — so most people have some H1 immunity.
这或多或少能够解释这为什么被称为“所有流行病之母”—所以多数人都有些H1免疫力。
But if there’s ever another big antigenic shift, that could be a problem — because it could definitely happen and might even cause another pandemic.
但如果有任何一种其他大型抗原转移，就会产生问题—因为这绝对可能发生且或许会引发另一场流行性疾病。
To protect us from that possibility — and the rest of the flus — scientists are working on a universal vaccine.
为了保护大家不受这种可能性以及其他流感影响—科学家正在研制通用疫苗。
There are several in development right now that target parts of the virus that are the same across all variants.
现在对病毒变体相似性的研究已取得一些进展。
And if any of them work, it could someday mean that one vaccine would protect you from every flu season.
如果其中任何一种能起作用的话，就意味着这种疫苗能够保护大家不受任何一个流感季的影响。
So even though it’s possible, hopefully we’ll never experience another pandemic like the Spanish flu again.
虽然有可能，希望我们不用再经历另一场西班牙流感。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow, and a special thanks to all of our patrons on Patreon who help us make episodes like this.
感谢收看本期科学秀，特别感谢Patreon上的提问观众。
If you’d like to support the show, you can go to patreon.com/scishow.
支持科学秀，请登录patreon.com/scishow。
