# Were there any social practices permanently killed off by The Spanish Flu? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [April 20, 2020, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234 "2020-04-20T23:50:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/22 "2020-04-21T20:54:12Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Cancers of the mouth and throat are also no joke, and smokeless tobacco, like smoking, greatly increases chances of heart attack and stroke. > > Over the last 20 years, mouth and throat cancers have probably become more treatable (though they are terrible) than lung cancer, but before that, it was all the same. No joke, certainly- and certainly a issue. But no where near as deadly as cigarette smoking. And second hand smoke kills 50000 Americans a year. I dont think there is even a single death from “second hand chaw”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/23 "2020-04-21T20:55:24Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > I understand that the custom of drinking from a common cup at gatherings came to an abrupt end. People IME were still passing jugs around at least well into the 1980’s. Wine jugs at parties, water jugs in the fields, canteens when out camping. I never did figure out any specific reason why this stopped. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/24 "2020-04-21T21:25:29Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I take your point that I have no scholarly literature to back it up, but with spittoons existing for another 50 or so years in some parts of the country, it seems a tough sell to attribute the decline to the Spanish flu. Probably the answer to the question “Were there any social practices permanently killed off by X” can always be answered NO–because there are still some people who will retain that practice. Thus if I were to ask “Were there any social practices permanently killed off by HIV/AIDS?” what would your response be? What immediately comes to mind is the use of condoms instead of bareback sex by male homosexuals, fewer male homosexuals having massive numbers of one-night stands and quitting needle sharing by heroin addicts. But of course none of these changes were 100%, just as the change in spitting was not 100%. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/25 "2020-04-21T21:36:54Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Probably the answer to the question “Were there any social practices permanently killed off by X” can always be answered NO–because there are still some people who will retain that practice. Thus if I were to ask “Were there any social practices permanently killed off by HIV/AIDS?” what would your response be? What immediately comes to mind is the use of condoms instead of bareback sex by male homosexuals, fewer male homosexuals having massive numbers of one-night stands and quitting needle sharing by heroin addicts. But of course none of these changes were 100%, just as the change in spitting was not 100%. I see your point. But in my mind this would be like saying that the reason smoking is banned in bars and restaurants in most parts of the country is “because” of the Surgeon General’s report in the early 1960s linking smoking to lung cancer. It certainly played at least some part, but we continued to have pretty much (to varying degrees) unrestricted smoking for 30 to 35 years after that. Then a younger generation came along that wasn’t told that smoking was cool. Then public opinion shifted to allow these bans. And there are still parts of the country that don’t have them. So if you said that the 1960s Surgeon General’s report “caused” current bans, you would definitely be partially correct. But I don’t think that was what the OP was looking for (although he/she could certainly speak for him/herself). Maybe the Spanish flu accelerates some spittoon bans, but it definitely was not a “because the Spanish flu happened, then to hell with all of these filthy spittoons”! ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/26 "2020-04-21T21:43:56Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I see your point. But in my mind this would be like saying that the reason smoking is banned in bars and restaurants in most parts of the country is “because” of the Surgeon General’s report in the early 1960s linking smoking to lung cancer… And also, in some restaurants- smoking still occurs. Small local eateries, I have seen it myself. So, yes, some practices still occur, but now they are so rare to be remarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/27 "2020-04-21T21:46:45Z")
> [@Knavette](#): > > I heard or read somewhere that long, sweepoing skirts became unfashionable bc of the possibility of germ transmission from soil, ground, floors, etc. It seems possible, since really long skirts have never really returned to being the fashion for daywear. Hemlines seemed to rise after about 1918 or so. This actually started happening in 1915, for reasons of practicality for the increased number of women in the workplace, largely due to the war. WWI did a lot to flatten the social structure in places with a pronounced class system like the UK, and I think the flu at the end of the war furthered the same trend. The lack of men meant that lots of upper-class women had to either remain spinsters or marry “unsuitable” men, including those not of their class. Probably to a lesser extent, upper-class men going off to war got exposed to “unsuitable” women as nurses or ambulance drivers or the like, and married some of them. I suppose they showed this on Downton Abbey? I don’t know, I never watched it. I did read about the phenomenon in a few books. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/28 "2020-04-21T21:49:51Z")
I told you that there were previous public health efforts to eliminate public spitting and your answer is “that doesn’t prove Spanish flu killed off spittoons”? No, but it sure should make you think there’s better suspects than the gentleman class killing it off. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/29 "2020-04-21T21:59:12Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I told you that there were previous public health efforts to eliminate public spitting and your answer is “that doesn’t prove Spanish flu killed off spittoons”? No, but it sure should make you think there’s better suspects than the gentleman class killing it off. Yes, you are correct. The Flu and TB combined to reduce Chaw. It’s not quite gone, but it was largely replaced by cigarettes. ---
**Author:** ![rsat3acr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a3d4f5/32.png) [@rsat3acr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsat3acr)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/30 "2020-04-21T22:21:33Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Cancers of the mouth and throat are also no joke, and smokeless tobacco, like smoking, greatly increases chances of heart attack and stroke. > > Over the last 20 years, mouth and throat cancers have probably become more treatable (though they are terrible) than lung cancer, but before that, it was all the same. As a dentist my observation over 30 years is that dip and chew are worse then smoking. I’ve seen a few dippers/chewers in their 20’s and a dozen or so in their 30’s with oral cancer. Never had a patient who was a smoker with lung cancer in their 20’s or 30’s despite the fact that I had quite a few more smoker patients then dippers/chewers. On a personal note I’d rather someone dip or chew because second hand smoke affects everyone who is in contact with it. If you smell smoke it is in your system. May not be much but it is there. Never had anyone spit tobacco juice on me. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/31 "2020-04-21T23:03:31Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > I told you that there were previous public health efforts to eliminate public spitting and your answer is “that doesn’t prove Spanish flu killed off spittoons”? No, but it sure should make you think there’s better suspects than the gentleman class killing it off. And there may very well be. However, if that theory is correct you should see some data that before 1918 there were X number of spittoons in public places and a precipitous drop off in the next few years. Or maybe you see an explosion in the sales of cigarettes after 1918, and a corresponding decline in the sale of chewing tobacco or snuff. If you don’t see that, and if there is no data to support that, then the idea that the Spanish flu curtailed public spittoons is as much of a guess as mine is. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2020, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/32 "2020-04-21T23:17:25Z")
Uh, no. If I point out a well known example of spitting being frowned upon for public health concerns just before the Spanish flu, that lends at least some legitimacy to the idea Spanish flu made spitting even less popular. Not conclusive evidence but not nothing. You literally have nothing to support your guess other than “elites always be bugging”. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/33 "2020-04-22T01:51:02Z")
> [@bibliophage](#): > > I don’t know. My mother told me that when she was a child in the mid-late 1930s, her town had a fountain downtown and a communal tin cup for thirsty passers by. She claimed no one she knew considered it unsanitary, and she was related to several nurses. Instead of dispensing caned or bottled drinks Soviet vending machines had a communal glass that everyone drank out of and then rinsed out with a small hose. Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2020, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234/34 "2020-04-22T02:10:13Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Uh, no. If I point out a well known example of spitting being frowned upon for public health concerns just before the Spanish flu, that lends at least some legitimacy to the idea Spanish flu made spitting even less popular. Not conclusive evidence but not nothing. You literally have nothing to support your guess other than “elites always be bugging”. But if it was announced before the Spanish flu then it was not caused by the Spanish flu, agreed? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-there-any-social-practices-permanently-killed-off-by-the-spanish-flu/852234.md?page=1)