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It was in 1918 that the great “Spanish flu” epidemic arrived. As with our own recent experience, there were frenzied efforts to find a cure, or at least to find reliable ways of preventing it from spreading. In the article that follows, it was recommended that one way to protect oneself (at least for men) was to grow a moustache, which might then partly function as a germ strainer, a natural mask and camouflage.
HIRSUTE VEIL CAMOUFLAGE IS FLU GERM DUPE in Salt Lake Herald-Republican, December 125, 1918, p. 48.
Further hint to the flu dodger—masquerade behind nature’s mask, the moustache. Or, as a further safeguard, raise whiskers.
Tis thus some of the health authorities advise. A fuzzy growth, whether on lip or jowl, they explain, is a germ strainer. The burglarious bacillus, trying to break in, has about as much chance as a camel at the needle’s eye or a carrot in a colendar.
If the moustache or whiskers prove to be real preventives, lots of Salt Lake men who pine to retire from an ailing world will take the hirsute veil. Faces which have been displayed merely as faces may take on the display of sylvan retreats and bosky dells. Razor and scythe will be laid away and phizes will be allowed to sprout in all their wild carefree abandon. Familiar countenances will be concealed behind an impenetrable camouflage and the only recognizable features when friend meets friend will be a pair of eyes, a twinkling nose and two untrammeled ears.
The local Adonis, whose finely-chiseled beauty won the hearts of all feminine beholders, will appear in his bewhiskered role as plain as a welcome mat. The homely citizen will resemble a discarded Christmas tree, which has reached a sere and yellow pass. It will be a sad day for the barbers, but the hedge trimmers and landscape gardeners may build up a profitable business.
If Salt Lake men decide to go in for moustaches and whiskers, the caravansarles may become strangely quiet. For not a one of them will have the hardihood to order soup.
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