In 1919, a U.S. Senator declared that bicarbonate of soda could cure the Spanish flu... In the midst of the debate on 26 January 1919, Senator Overman interrupted the discussion to announce the discovery of a cure. "I want to say, for the benefit of those who are making this investigation," he reported, "that I was told by a judge of a superior court in the mountain country of North Carolina they have discovered a remedy for this disease." The purported cure implied a critique of modern science and an appreciation for the simple wisdom of simple people. "They say that common baking soda will cure the disease," he continued, "that they have cured it with it, that they have no deaths up there at all; they use common baking soda, which cures the disease." – American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic, Oxford University Press, 15 March 2012, page 178