gilda_elise

At the height of WWI, history's most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon.

In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote, “–the more things change, the more they stay the same…” Truer words were never spoken, especially when you compare the reactions of those in power then to those now. Now, as then, you had a president who ignored the pandemic, too focused on other matters (at least with Wilson it was a world war.) Now, as then, you had local officials downplaying the disease. Now, as then, many doctors were ignored or, worse, vilified for trying to get out the truth. Now, as then, people continued to travel (though many being soldiers had no choice in the matter.)

But the book starts with the history of medicine, and where the medical establishment was in 1918. At least in that we are better off. From there it dives into the pandemic, where it started and how it spread. Ironically, the flu probably started in the US, at or near a military base in Kansas, not Spain, and was spread by the soldiers. It came to be known as the Spanish Flu because, since Spain was neutral, it was about the only country allowing the media to tell the truth about the illness.

It also covers all the medical experts who fought the disease, many of who would later be lauded as they continued their careers.

It’s an interesting and fact-filled book that probably most people should read. In 1918 a deadly pandemic spread through the world, killing millions. It’s happen again now. It will definitely happen again in the future. We should be prepared.

Mount TBR 2021 Book Links

Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.

1. The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History