Episode S-4- 14  Crimes and Cons of the 1918 pandemic

Would people take advantage of others who are sick?  Do people prey on others during times of national crisis? 

 One young lady became quite infamous for her activities doing so.

A hundred years ago, before our current coronavirus crisis, the 1918 flu was killing people worldwide. .  Perhaps more than 675,000 people in the United States and 50 million around the world.

Like today, in that crisis nurses were on the front line caring for the sick.  Most hospitals were packed and the country needed nurses. 

Miss  Julia Lyons saw this need and stepped up. .  But her intentions were not well-meaning, to say the least.  She portrayed herself as a busy visiting home health nurse in Chicago during the pandemic of 1918. It  “goes without saying when you look closely at  Miss  “Slick Julia,” as she came to be known, she was not Florence Nightingale.

 Could this happen today?  What do you think?  Listen and decide.