A guest at the Quincy House Hotel in Boston recommended apples as a cure for influenza in October 1918. He was quoted in the Boston Post as saying, “Up in the country, where I come from, the simple home remedies appear most effectual. Apples may seem like an old woman’s whim, but try them as a preventative anyway.” Some readers were alarmed. “What, no chicken soup?” they demanded. Read more about the deadly Spanish flu pandemic a century ago in On the Shore (1917-1925), a tale of conflict between generations in a Lower East Side immigrant family (see NOVELS).
