In 1510, an acute respiratory disease emerged in Asia[2][1][3] before spreading through North Africa and Europe during the first chronicled, inter-regional flu pandemic generally recognized by medical historians and epidemiologists.

[2] Gregor Horst writes in Operum medicorum tombus primus (1661) that the disease came from Asia and spread along trade routes[1] before attacking the Middle East and North Africa.

Contemporary chroniclers and those who have read their accounts observed how entire populations were attacked at once,[17][1] which is how the disease first received the name influenza (from the belief that such outbreaks were caused by influences like stars or cold).

[10] Turin professor Francisco Vallerioli (aka Valleriola) writes that the 1510 flu featured "Constriction of breathing, and beginning with a hoarseness of voice and... shivering.

[26] German physician Achilles Gasser recorded a deadly epidemic spreading over the Holy Roman Empire's upper kingdoms, branching into the cities and the "whole mankind:" Mira qua edam Epidemia mortales per urbes hanc totamque adeo superiorem Germaniam corripiebat, qua aegri IV vel V ad summum dies molestissimis destillationibus laborabant ac ration privati instar phrenicorum furebant, atque inde iterum convalescebant, paucissimis ad Gorcum demissis.

[17] Arriving aboard infected sailors from Sicily, influenza struck the Kingdom of France through the ports of Marseille and Nice and spread through the international crowds of the shipyards.

[1][13][27][7][28][29] Historian François Eudes de Mézeray traced the etymology of "coqueluche" to an outbreak 1410s[30] during which sufferers wore hoods resembling coqueluchons, a kind of monk's cowl.

[30] French poet and historian Jean Bouchet, employed by King Louis XII's Royal Court, wrote that the epidemic "appeared in the entire Kingdom of France, as much in the towns as in the countryside.

[6] Jean Fernel (aka Fernelius), physician to Henry III of France, compares the 1557 influenza to the 1510 epidemic which attacked everyone with fever, a heaviness in their head, and profound coughing.

[34] Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, a close friend and advisor to the King of France, is sometimes believed to have died of influenza since his health sharply declined after arriving in Lyons in May 1510.

His sudden decline in health and flu's arrival in Europe around early summer have created uncertainty as to whether he died of gout or influenza, but "coqueluche" is not mentioned in French royal correspondence that year until August.

[1] An epidemiological study of past influenza pandemics reviewing previous medical historians' data has found England was affected in 1510[37] and there were reports of symptoms like "gastrodynia" and noteworthy murrain among cattle.

[39] Influenza reached the Iberian Peninsula early after Italy, due to the highly interconnected trade and pilgrimage routes between Spain, Portugal, and the Italian kingdoms.