The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
The Great Influenza: the epic story of the deadliest plague in history
By John M. Barry
I have to be honest, it was the picture that drew me in, #6 showing an army emergency hospital. I have seen this picture before. My grandfather, Dr. Calvin Goddard, was an army doctor in 1918 and in a cupboard in my parent’s living room was an old document about his treatment of soldiers during the influenza epidemic of 1918. One of the protocols that he initiated was to place the sick in alternating directions so that they had greater space between heads and therefore coughs, fluids, etc.
The most wonderful aspect of this book is that it covers most of the medical and political world at the time of the great influenza. Influenza pandemics have been circling the world since recorded history. Even now approximately 40,000 people die a year, in the United States alone, from influenza. Almost 90 years later. Post anti-biotics. Now, when even possible pandemics are hyped on television and in the magazines, influenza is still a force to be reckoned with.
At the start of the twentieth century to become a doctor, even at such prestigious institutions as Harvard and Princeton a person did not even have to graduate from high school. The teachers were just doctors who lived nearby. Students often never saw a patient, performed no necropsies, never used microscope, never worked in a laboratory, had little knowledge of the pathology of disease. That was about to change with the European education of many young doctors and the established of the Johns Hopkins medical school along those lines.
The influenza pandemic probably started in Kansas. It only became known as the Spanish flu because Spain was the only country not at war and therefore still had some freedom of the press to even mention that the flu was devastating their country. In the United States, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, a political conservative and religious fundamentalist had totally shut down freedom of the press and many other freedoms citing patriotism and the need to keep Americans on the right track, so that the influenza pandemic could not be mentioned. The public health officer for the city of Philadelphia allowed a huge co-mingling of these young men and the public during a parade. He said that all was well. It was not patriotic to establish guidelines to protect the civilian public. At the same time thousands and thousands of young men were sent to various camps, kept in crowded quarters throughout the country and from there shipped out to other military containment centers and then to Europe. They were most infectious to others before symptoms appeared and were in huge numbers dead within the week. Possibly 10% of those who came down with the influenza died. Doctors died, nurses died. Over the fall and winter of 1918 more people died from influenza than any other pandemic before or after.
I love mysteries and this book is an informative, exciting cliff hanger. I have learned medical history, social history, political history. I see my grandfather in a whole new light. He went on to become or so I was told, the youngest director of the Johns Hopkins Hospital before becoming a developer of the new science of forensics. He was invited to Chicago to sort out who shot whom in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre and later with others developed the method of tracing a bullet back to the gun from which it was shot.
Even if your grandfather was not part of this era, this book will leave you wanting to know more.
More information on this topic:
The Devil's Flu by Pete Davies
Flu: the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it by Gina Kolata
Influenza 1918; the worst epidemic in American History
and the PBS video: Influenza 1918
A few of the websites still discussing this pandemic.
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Flu
Eliza
By John M. Barry
I have to be honest, it was the picture that drew me in, #6 showing an army emergency hospital. I have seen this picture before. My grandfather, Dr. Calvin Goddard, was an army doctor in 1918 and in a cupboard in my parent’s living room was an old document about his treatment of soldiers during the influenza epidemic of 1918. One of the protocols that he initiated was to place the sick in alternating directions so that they had greater space between heads and therefore coughs, fluids, etc.
The most wonderful aspect of this book is that it covers most of the medical and political world at the time of the great influenza. Influenza pandemics have been circling the world since recorded history. Even now approximately 40,000 people die a year, in the United States alone, from influenza. Almost 90 years later. Post anti-biotics. Now, when even possible pandemics are hyped on television and in the magazines, influenza is still a force to be reckoned with.
At the start of the twentieth century to become a doctor, even at such prestigious institutions as Harvard and Princeton a person did not even have to graduate from high school. The teachers were just doctors who lived nearby. Students often never saw a patient, performed no necropsies, never used microscope, never worked in a laboratory, had little knowledge of the pathology of disease. That was about to change with the European education of many young doctors and the established of the Johns Hopkins medical school along those lines.
The influenza pandemic probably started in Kansas. It only became known as the Spanish flu because Spain was the only country not at war and therefore still had some freedom of the press to even mention that the flu was devastating their country. In the United States, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, a political conservative and religious fundamentalist had totally shut down freedom of the press and many other freedoms citing patriotism and the need to keep Americans on the right track, so that the influenza pandemic could not be mentioned. The public health officer for the city of Philadelphia allowed a huge co-mingling of these young men and the public during a parade. He said that all was well. It was not patriotic to establish guidelines to protect the civilian public. At the same time thousands and thousands of young men were sent to various camps, kept in crowded quarters throughout the country and from there shipped out to other military containment centers and then to Europe. They were most infectious to others before symptoms appeared and were in huge numbers dead within the week. Possibly 10% of those who came down with the influenza died. Doctors died, nurses died. Over the fall and winter of 1918 more people died from influenza than any other pandemic before or after.
I love mysteries and this book is an informative, exciting cliff hanger. I have learned medical history, social history, political history. I see my grandfather in a whole new light. He went on to become or so I was told, the youngest director of the Johns Hopkins Hospital before becoming a developer of the new science of forensics. He was invited to Chicago to sort out who shot whom in the St. Valentine’s Day massacre and later with others developed the method of tracing a bullet back to the gun from which it was shot.
Even if your grandfather was not part of this era, this book will leave you wanting to know more.
More information on this topic:
The Devil's Flu by Pete Davies
Flu: the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it by Gina Kolata
Influenza 1918; the worst epidemic in American History
and the PBS video: Influenza 1918
A few of the websites still discussing this pandemic.
http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/influenza/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Flu
Eliza
posted by Staff of the Mendocino County Library | 4:30 PM
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