American soldiers gargling salt water to try and protect themselves from the Spanish Flu epidemic, November 1918

Source

Natethesnake81: Does anybody know if that actually worked, or was it just an old wives tale?

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/imageserver/image/methode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fa6f747ca-3a59-11e7-a451-ead20c30db3d.jpg?crop=1500%2C844%2C0%2C78

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pale-rider-the-spanish-flu-of-1918-and-how-it-changed-the-world-by-laura-spinney-snd96x8hn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

Summer95: My great grandfather died from the 1918 flu pandemic. He lived in North West Texas. In an effort to stop the spread, the sheriff put guards at the county line all roads. People going either way were turned back.

agentwest: Wow, you can really see how much shorter people were on average 100 years ago.