The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, by John M. Barry (2004)
After Hurricane Katrina, I read Rising Tide, by John M. Barry. It is about the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. I was struck by how in the intervening 70 years between the 1927 flood and the 2005 hurricane, how very little had changed. Now that we are in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, I picked up John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. Again, I was stuck how little has changed in the past 100 years. Although there have been significant medical advances, politically, things are much the same. The government was slow to act and withheld critical information.
The book begins with an overview of the state of medical science at the end of the 1800s. American medical schools basically accepted anyone and lagged far behind the quality of medical education offered in Europe. When Johns Hopkins died, he bequeathed a $7M trust to fund a university and hospital. The Board created to make Johns Hopkins bequest a reality, they build a university that would rival the best schools in Europe, and required rigorous admission standards and classroom work. The medical course would include classes in chemistry, anatomy through autopsies, and laboratory courses. These requirements were unheard of in existing American medical schools.
William Welch, the first dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, recruited faculty, many who were European-trained physicians. Soon students began flocking to the school. Shortly thereafter, the Rockefeller Foundation for Medical Research was created for the purpose of focusing on medical research. By the time the 1918 influenza pandemic began, other medical research schools throughout the country had been created and were in operation. Thus, by the time of the pandemic, the medical community was at least prepared to understand the chaos of the disease.
In 1918, World War I was raging in Europe. The countries then at war suppressed news of the illness. Spain, which was not then involved in the war, did, however, report cases of the influenza, thus the influenza became known as the Spanish Flu. Although the exact origin of the influenza is not definitively known, the most likely theory is that it originated in the United States. In early 1918, in Haskell County, Kansas, the local physician began seeing a few young men with the disease. Had the country not been at war, the disease might have simply died out. Camp Funston, a part of the army base of Ft. Riley, was near Haskell County, and young men from Haskell were sent to the Camp, where tight quarters provided the perfect breeding ground for viral spread. As these young recruits were sent around to other bases in the United States and Europe, the virus quickly mutated and spread.
The book describes how the leading scientists at the now excellent medical facilities in the United States began the search for the causative agent of the disease. The leading contender was a bacterial agent. Richard Pfeiffer had isolated a new bacterium, which was named Bacillus influenzae. This bacterium was found in many, but not all, victims of the disease. Vaccines were created against this bacterium but did not provide protection against the disease. Time was lost before the causative agent was determined to be a virus.
Meanwhile, President Woodrow Wilson did little to assist in the fight against the disease. Rupert Blue, the Surgeon General of the United States, also took little action. In fact, according to Barry, he actually blocked relevant medical research and rejected requests for financial support. Interestingly, after the War, while Wilson was negotiating peace treaties with Europe, he came down with influenza. After he recovered, it was noted that his mind was never the same. Barry goes into great detail about how doctors and medical scientist noted that the disease seemed to cause neurological effects on the brain of many patients who recovered from the illness.
Barry concludes the book with a chilling warning that a new pandemic is inevitable in the future. He warned that, as of the publication of the book (2004), that the United States was unprepared for such a pandemic. The future is here now.
Read: April 9, 2020
4.5 Stars
Rising Tide, by John M. Barry. Read September 6, 2006
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