Hey /r/akshistorians, I am currently writing a story set torwards the end of the first world war during the time of the great flu pandemic known today as the Spanish flu. My main character is a doctor trying to save his fiancee, which is why I wanted to ask you guys about which treatments were used to combat the disease?
The same treatments as today; rest and liquids.
You may want to check out Alfred Crosby’s “America’s Forgotten Pandemic.” It is probably still one of the best overviews of the global outbreak and includes notes about treatment. Influenza was not a new illness, it was as normal then as it is today, which is partly why the Spanish Flu was so deadly, ships carrying sick passengers didn’t have to alert harbor health officials as flu was not a notifiable disease, it was a normal part of life.
For more on a different context consider checking the work of Rice on New Zealand; both “Black November” and “That Terrible Time. Eyewitness accounts of the 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand,” might be of great interest for their first hand accounts of the outbreak and the horror as word spread that this influenza was not normal.