The Atlantic
Three 103-year-old-lung samples hinted at how the flu mutated to become more deadly.
11:49 AM ET
A converted warehouse that was used to isolate 1918 flu patientsUniversal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty
The three teenagers two boys and a girl could not have known what clues their lungs would one day yield. All they could have known, or felt, before they died in Germany in 1918 was their flu-ravaged lungs failing them, each breath getting harder and harder. Tens of millions of people like them died in the flu pandemic of 1918; they happened to be three whose lungs were preserved by a farsighted pathologist.