"Excuse me, sir, don't you see I'm busy? And I don't need any punches, calculators, or anything like that! On this day, as soon as Monet arrived at the magazine, he saw Beasley talking impatiently to a middle-aged man with a vicissitudes of life.

Monet knew that because of his style of being a shopkeeper, and Beasley's work efficiency was not as high as Christina's, he seemed very busy every day, so he smiled and said to the middle-aged man: "This gentleman, come to my office to talk!" ”

As soon as the middle-aged man saw the sign in the editor's office, he immediately knew that he had met the real boss, so as soon as Monet entered the room and sat down, he took the initiative to hand out his business card and introduce himself: "Hello Mr. Monet, I am Thomas John Watson, the sales manager of the computational watchmaking company!" ”

When it comes to the name of the calculation indicator company, everyone may not be familiar with it, but if you talk about its abbreviation, no one must know it, it is IBM!

That's right, IBM was founded in 1911, of course, at this time, it was not a computer company, but mainly produced calculators, punches and other office supplies, and it was not until 1932 that it began to invest heavily in the establishment of laboratories, and it developed rapidly during World War II.

And the key leader who made IBM grow was Thomas Watson, who was sitting in front of him at the moment...... Son Thomas Watson Jr.

Although it is still very early from the real development of IBM, Monet feels that since he met Thomas Watson today, it is not bad to have a good relationship, at least it will be much more convenient to deal with him in the future, so he smiled and said to Thomas Watson: "That's it, Mr. Watson, you take a few samples from your company, we will see how the quality is, if it meets our requirements, then our office equipment will be purchased from your company in the future!" ”

"Really? Thank you so much, Mr. Monet, you can rest assured that there is absolutely no problem with the quality of our company's products! Thomas Watson excitedly assured again and again, because he knew that the scale of "Comet" magazine is not small, not only the best-selling science fiction magazine "Comet" in New York, but also the man's gospel "Playboy" and the new "Reader's Digest", this is definitely a big order, and it is also a long-term order, if it can really be negotiated, then it will be regarded as an additional fixed income in the future.

One day a few years later, Jessica snuggled into Monet's arms and casually chatted: "Tony, have you noticed that there seem to be more people who have caught colds recently!" On this day, Jessica said casually to Monet after the intimacy.

"Isn't it normal for someone to catch a cold in the spring!" Monet replied disapprovingly.

Jessica retorted: "If it were normal, I wouldn't tell you, but this year is really a lot, much more than in previous years, I don't know why, I always feel that this 1918 is not so good!" ”

Hearing the words "1918" and "many people catch a cold", Monet's mind suddenly recalled an extremely terrible thing, that is, the "Spanish flu" that caused 40 million to 100 million deaths in the world, you must know that the First World War was fought at the same time, the total number of civilians and soldiers who died in the world was only 16 million, and the total population of the world at this time was only 170 million!

On March 11, 1918, at the Finston boot camp in Kansas, Private Gitchel, a company cook, complained to the nurse that he had "chills, a sore throat, a headache and sore muscles." This is the earliest recorded case, also known as patient zero of the Spanish flu.

Within three weeks, 1,100 people in the 30,000-strong barracks had become ill, all of which were registered in hospitals, and there was a possibility that the symptoms would be mild and self-healing. Of the 1,100 soldiers, 230 eventually developed pneumonia, 38 died, and the in-hospital mortality rate reached 3.5 percent. But compared to the tens of thousands of people who die every day in the shelling of the wars in Europe, the death of a few dozen soldiers does not attract the slightest attention.

The United States established a total of 36 boot camps to train recruits across the country, and because some officers and soldiers would move between different training camps, there were eventually 24 training camps, all of which had cases of influenza. But all this, again, did not attract the slightest attention, just a cold.

In addition to the movement of barracks, the U.S. military also has a generous vacation mechanism, and recruits can enjoy five days of vacation after three months of training, which is much better than the fact that Germany could not return home once a year during the same period. But the vacation allowed the virus to spread throughout the United States, and by the end of April, flu cases had been detected in 30 of the country's 50 largest cities. But all this is nothing compared to the war in Europe.

At the end of the holiday, 84,000 American troops were transported by ship to France, then to the British army, and by the time the Germans captured a group of British and French prisoners, Germany was also infected, and then spread to almost all of Europe.

The reason why it was named "The Spanish Flu" is because during the war, the belligerent countries did not report on this incident in order to maintain domestic stability, and Spain, as a neutral country, naturally did not have these scruples, so it reported it, and it became "the first country to have this flu", so it was named......

In fact, Spain is also very depressed about this matter, and has been defending it for more than 100 years, but unfortunately the public has become accustomed to being called so, so it is not easy to change, and later because of this matter, the World Health Organization set a rule, that is, a disease can no longer be named after a place name. (Doesn't this sound familiar?) Concealing the illness and pushing the pot to other countries, the United States will still do this in 2020, 100 years later...... ）

There are three stages of this big flu (the big flu will be called the "Spanish flu" later, after all, this name is indeed unfair to Spain), the first stage is the spring of 1918, the big flu at this time is not so terrible and deadly, but in the summer, the second stage appeared, the fatality rate suddenly soared, and the death rate was particularly fast, often in the morning when I went to work, the symptoms attacked, and I died directly in the afternoon, and there was no time to rescue.

Thinking of this, Monet's face suddenly changed, although he only knew the severity of this wave of influenza based on the information, after all, he had experienced the new museum in 2020, so he was afraid of this infectious disease from the bottom of his bones.

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