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Influenza 1918: The Worst Epidemic in American History
Book by Iezzoni, Lynette
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2000
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March 24, 2020
Summary: An interesting read about the Influenza of 1918. I was cross referencing it to the article in the NY Times which did a good job presenting it but not sensationalizing. That said, others have and I am glad I read it to understand the facts. This book is really 3.5, but rounding up.
If you find my reviews helpful, I would be thrilled for your to check out my Vlog @: IG: WhereIsMayLing and Youtube: Diary of a Speed Reader. New for me to shift formats. Would appreciate your support.
This book is written after the First set of bird flus came out in HK. Different times and different tone. The similarities and differences are very striking. Though the world is not yet ready to likely think of it that way.
p. 16 - they thought it was a bacteria infection. it is not. So I can't quite tell and I wish the book would have been more thoughtful about the cure and whether that really was correct. Technically you don't treat a virus the same way as a bacterial infection. so it's all very confusing.
p. 17 - 1950 was the first time they ever saw a virus. But it says it's b/c of the electron microscope, which wikipedia says was invented in 1937. Possibly it had only just gotten strong enough. Then it says, that it took until 1996 for them to find the actual virus that was called Spanish flu: "Influenza viruses change constantly, and [the virus] had long since mutated beyond recognition, taking her secrets with her to countless millions of graves all over the world."
They had a sample though of this dude Private Roscoe Vaughn who's body was a part of the National Tissue Repository. (this is interesting from another book, about how we keep old DNA samples of people without necessarily telling them).
p. 18- Though we call it the Spanish Lady, they think now that it came from Kansas. It is a type of Avian virus that linked up with a pig. It's now called Influenza 191S....
p. 30 Influenza lives in birds but as far as we know, it cannot give flu to humans. It needs another carrier. Most commonly, it's going to be Bird to pig or bird to chicken.
You do have some stable viruses like polio. They don't change. you can create a vaccine. (vaccine created 1950).
So what happens is like a duck virus plus a human DNA (?) meet inside a pig. Let's call that animal the carrier X. The 3 types of rna have like group mixing and you create a whole new crazy virus. An interspecies virus. This creates a new viral family.
"These proteins form sharp spikes (which allow them to adhere easily to the cells of the nose and throat), and come in two varieties: Hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). " The shell is how you identify the virus.
So basically it's the outside that defines the changes and as that shifts around so to are new mutant viruses introduced. They call that "viral drift."
EVEN Though the book suggests Spanish lady comes from Kansas, it then goes to say there are 2 kinds, one from HK and one from Russia. Why it gotta be so geo specific? it doesn't say. But there are two kinds.
So then it goes on to say that this Kansas flu then went to France and went gangbusters crazy mutating.
p. 45 because nations were at war, no one seemed to care about the warnings of experts.
p. 47 All the allied nations blamed the germans believing they had unleashed something on the allies.
p. 64 They stopped bringing men home b/c of the volume and also the concern of contagion.
p. 85 - The US public Health Service (this was I think run by Herbert Hoover) was passing out all sorts of blankets and face masks to going door to door.
p. 95 - The big PSA was to wear a mask to save lives outdoors.
p. 112 - Small stashes of coffins were hoarded.
p. 116 - Those who survived were further immune.
p. 118 - Anti-mask groups started to find things to argue with mask wearers about.
p. 126 - It was hugely expensive $60mm (I'm assuming in their dollars), Kansas lost about $100mm.
p. 133 - No one cared, b/c then armistice day became the most important thing.
p. 137 - "In 1960, the influenza virus was glimpsed for the first time, through a stronger version of the electron microscope (again, it was invented in 1937).
p. 138 - The W.H.O. has a family tree of the viruses. Since 1970, all strains have been H1N1 or H3N2 strains. If it's outside of these 2 it freaks people out. That is what will cause international alarm. It talks about a shift to H2N2 in Asia in 1968. btw... we were on H5N2 last I checked... so ... it's mutated a bit since then.
p. 139 The 1997 outbreak was particularly scary b/c it's the first time a bird gave it directly to a human, via actual chicken to human contact/food.
then he's like "The 1997 Hong Kong 'bird flu' demonstrates just how much remains beyond the scope of twentieth-century science, and offers yet more testimony of the wily adaptive genius of viruses.
p. 142 - This virus (Spanish Lady) was an H1N1 series of virus.
p. 143 - Virologist apparently go around the world trying to find viruses. There is a story here of virologists trying to hunt down some dolphins that looked like they had the measles. Dr. Jeffery K. Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
p. 145 They traced the virus from the Armed forces to some Eskimos that also had it. So if it was a duck, it was 1 very naughty duck. Who somehow got it up in alaska and brought it down to kansas. But he'd killed those people first. So I don't think they actually know shit, quite frankly.
"Did a pig prove the mixing vessel in which a savage duck wine human brew was concocted Or did a feverish man, woman, or child give the virus to a pig in the fall of 1918, dooming swine to eternal cycles of annual disease?
If you find my reviews helpful, I would be thrilled for your to check out my Vlog @: IG: WhereIsMayLing and Youtube: Diary of a Speed Reader. New for me to shift formats. Would appreciate your support.
This book is written after the First set of bird flus came out in HK. Different times and different tone. The similarities and differences are very striking. Though the world is not yet ready to likely think of it that way.
p. 16 - they thought it was a bacteria infection. it is not. So I can't quite tell and I wish the book would have been more thoughtful about the cure and whether that really was correct. Technically you don't treat a virus the same way as a bacterial infection. so it's all very confusing.
p. 17 - 1950 was the first time they ever saw a virus. But it says it's b/c of the electron microscope, which wikipedia says was invented in 1937. Possibly it had only just gotten strong enough. Then it says, that it took until 1996 for them to find the actual virus that was called Spanish flu: "Influenza viruses change constantly, and [the virus] had long since mutated beyond recognition, taking her secrets with her to countless millions of graves all over the world."
They had a sample though of this dude Private Roscoe Vaughn who's body was a part of the National Tissue Repository. (this is interesting from another book, about how we keep old DNA samples of people without necessarily telling them).
p. 18- Though we call it the Spanish Lady, they think now that it came from Kansas. It is a type of Avian virus that linked up with a pig. It's now called Influenza 191S....
p. 30 Influenza lives in birds but as far as we know, it cannot give flu to humans. It needs another carrier. Most commonly, it's going to be Bird to pig or bird to chicken.
You do have some stable viruses like polio. They don't change. you can create a vaccine. (vaccine created 1950).
So what happens is like a duck virus plus a human DNA (?) meet inside a pig. Let's call that animal the carrier X. The 3 types of rna have like group mixing and you create a whole new crazy virus. An interspecies virus. This creates a new viral family.
"These proteins form sharp spikes (which allow them to adhere easily to the cells of the nose and throat), and come in two varieties: Hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA). " The shell is how you identify the virus.
So basically it's the outside that defines the changes and as that shifts around so to are new mutant viruses introduced. They call that "viral drift."
EVEN Though the book suggests Spanish lady comes from Kansas, it then goes to say there are 2 kinds, one from HK and one from Russia. Why it gotta be so geo specific? it doesn't say. But there are two kinds.
So then it goes on to say that this Kansas flu then went to France and went gangbusters crazy mutating.
p. 45 because nations were at war, no one seemed to care about the warnings of experts.
p. 47 All the allied nations blamed the germans believing they had unleashed something on the allies.
p. 64 They stopped bringing men home b/c of the volume and also the concern of contagion.
p. 85 - The US public Health Service (this was I think run by Herbert Hoover) was passing out all sorts of blankets and face masks to going door to door.
p. 95 - The big PSA was to wear a mask to save lives outdoors.
p. 112 - Small stashes of coffins were hoarded.
p. 116 - Those who survived were further immune.
p. 118 - Anti-mask groups started to find things to argue with mask wearers about.
p. 126 - It was hugely expensive $60mm (I'm assuming in their dollars), Kansas lost about $100mm.
p. 133 - No one cared, b/c then armistice day became the most important thing.
p. 137 - "In 1960, the influenza virus was glimpsed for the first time, through a stronger version of the electron microscope (again, it was invented in 1937).
p. 138 - The W.H.O. has a family tree of the viruses. Since 1970, all strains have been H1N1 or H3N2 strains. If it's outside of these 2 it freaks people out. That is what will cause international alarm. It talks about a shift to H2N2 in Asia in 1968. btw... we were on H5N2 last I checked... so ... it's mutated a bit since then.
p. 139 The 1997 outbreak was particularly scary b/c it's the first time a bird gave it directly to a human, via actual chicken to human contact/food.
then he's like "The 1997 Hong Kong 'bird flu' demonstrates just how much remains beyond the scope of twentieth-century science, and offers yet more testimony of the wily adaptive genius of viruses.
p. 142 - This virus (Spanish Lady) was an H1N1 series of virus.
p. 143 - Virologist apparently go around the world trying to find viruses. There is a story here of virologists trying to hunt down some dolphins that looked like they had the measles. Dr. Jeffery K. Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
p. 145 They traced the virus from the Armed forces to some Eskimos that also had it. So if it was a duck, it was 1 very naughty duck. Who somehow got it up in alaska and brought it down to kansas. But he'd killed those people first. So I don't think they actually know shit, quite frankly.
"Did a pig prove the mixing vessel in which a savage duck wine human brew was concocted Or did a feverish man, woman, or child give the virus to a pig in the fall of 1918, dooming swine to eternal cycles of annual disease?
March 23, 2020
As an infectious disease doctor, I love a good disease story. This book had been on my shelf for years until current events prompted me to pick it up. Normally, I prefer more science in my tales of epidemics (The Ghost Map, Betrayal of Trust, Typhoid Mary). Influenza 1918 was more of a layperson’s human interest story. So by these standards, it’s solidly a 3-star book. However, because I read it at the start of the 2019 Coronavirus pandemic, I had to give it an extra star because of its timeliness. The similarities to the current pandemic are haunting - from quarantined ships to shortages of masks, closing of public places to misinformation about transmission, conspiracy theories to international finger-pointing. Seriously, I could have been reading today’s news feed. The book didn’t offer much new scientific insights over what I already knew from reading in my field, but it was interesting to read about how the US was affected, and the interplay between influenza and World War I. It was a good way to spend the weekend while social distancing during Coronavirus, and also gave hope that we will get through this just like we got through Influenza 1918.
March 31, 2020
Reading about the horrific and massively deadly influenza epidemic of 1918 is a bit too topical of reading given the contemporary climate, but I have always liked to read frighteningly relevant books as a way of understanding the times in which one lives and in the approaches that are taken to the fears of massively deadly pandemics. It should be noted that the current Coronavirus pandemic is nowhere nearly as deadly as the 1918 flu that was inaccurately called the Spanish flu and which apparently started in Kansas in the fluke connection between a bird flu and a pig flu that combined and which mutated into a particularly deadly form of H1N1, but the reaction of political leaders and the medical community and the media to the Coronavirus has much in common with the response in 1918. This book shows some very eerie parallels, including the potential seasonal aspects of the disease, which can be expected to fade during the summer with a possible recurrence during the fall and winter, as well as the way that quinine was thought of as a remedy for the flu, and the way that masks were ubiquitous and business temporarily shut down as fear and panic and death spread across the world.
This book is a bit more than 200 pages and it focuses on the experience of the flu of 1918 as it relates to the United States, with a bit about its worldwide spread. After a foreword and preface the book begins with some speculation and then some discussion of the flu's beginnings in Kansas and how the transportation of doughboys to the Western front of World War I in crowded troopships greatly facilitated the spread of the disease to a Europe that was already in dire straits because of a lack of food. The author discusses the initial spread of the disease, the way it got a false name because of the difference in propaganda between an open country like Spain that was neutral and unable to muzzle the press like the fighting nations of World War I did. After that the author discusses the spread of a more virulent form of the disease back from Europe where it spread to the United States and caused all kinds of death, panic, and horror before the disease simply vanished, to leave public health efforts focused on bird flu and swine flu ever since then.
It is striking just how easily many people were able to forget the pandemic of 1918. For some people, like writer Katherine Anne Porter, the disease long troubled her and inspired her to create a fascinating work in Pale Horse, Pale Rider. Most people sought to do their best to move on and not think about the time too much. Perhaps that will be the response we will have in the aftermath of this disease when it is over. Those institutions that attempted to propagandize for their own benefit may suffer lasting harm to their reputations and honor--for such they deserve--and we will wonder why it is that despite a century of scientific advances that our response to diseases has not changed in any meaningful way over the past century. We still have very few tools as far as public health is concerned--some standby remedies that offer some hope, face masks, attempts at quarantining, efforts at building massive temporary hospitals, and the like. It is a great shame that we are still no better off when it comes to understanding the dangers of our world and how it is that we can stay relatively safe and to preserve health in a sensible fashion, so reading this book is a bit of a grim experience really in our present times.
This book is a bit more than 200 pages and it focuses on the experience of the flu of 1918 as it relates to the United States, with a bit about its worldwide spread. After a foreword and preface the book begins with some speculation and then some discussion of the flu's beginnings in Kansas and how the transportation of doughboys to the Western front of World War I in crowded troopships greatly facilitated the spread of the disease to a Europe that was already in dire straits because of a lack of food. The author discusses the initial spread of the disease, the way it got a false name because of the difference in propaganda between an open country like Spain that was neutral and unable to muzzle the press like the fighting nations of World War I did. After that the author discusses the spread of a more virulent form of the disease back from Europe where it spread to the United States and caused all kinds of death, panic, and horror before the disease simply vanished, to leave public health efforts focused on bird flu and swine flu ever since then.
It is striking just how easily many people were able to forget the pandemic of 1918. For some people, like writer Katherine Anne Porter, the disease long troubled her and inspired her to create a fascinating work in Pale Horse, Pale Rider. Most people sought to do their best to move on and not think about the time too much. Perhaps that will be the response we will have in the aftermath of this disease when it is over. Those institutions that attempted to propagandize for their own benefit may suffer lasting harm to their reputations and honor--for such they deserve--and we will wonder why it is that despite a century of scientific advances that our response to diseases has not changed in any meaningful way over the past century. We still have very few tools as far as public health is concerned--some standby remedies that offer some hope, face masks, attempts at quarantining, efforts at building massive temporary hospitals, and the like. It is a great shame that we are still no better off when it comes to understanding the dangers of our world and how it is that we can stay relatively safe and to preserve health in a sensible fashion, so reading this book is a bit of a grim experience really in our present times.
February 3, 2020
Info presented was eye-opening and jaw dropping. Emphasis on the point we NEVER talk about this ‘killer’ that wiped out a huge portion of THE WORLD’s population - in 10 months time more than wars.
Sadly i found the editing to be shoddy. In numerous places throughout, the same facts and bits of info from personal stories re-counted multiple times exactly the same wording. I understand the need for this on occasion - in this instance it stands out not as device but as a lack of organization. It’s jarring and almost made me want to throw down the book.
The good news: it has motivated me to read more in this gruesome plague and the ignorance and naivete with which it was (un) treated
Sadly i found the editing to be shoddy. In numerous places throughout, the same facts and bits of info from personal stories re-counted multiple times exactly the same wording. I understand the need for this on occasion - in this instance it stands out not as device but as a lack of organization. It’s jarring and almost made me want to throw down the book.
The good news: it has motivated me to read more in this gruesome plague and the ignorance and naivete with which it was (un) treated
April 13, 2020
A solid read on the influenza epidemic of 1918. Very interesting to read today in light of the coronavirus epidemic. In some ways, they were better prepared back then than we were today especially in regards to the production and use of face masks. I highly recommend the sister American Experience PBS documentary to this book.
May 25, 2009
Read for my DLS NF RA SIG. The book is oddly repetitive but still interesting, and a pretty fast read. "In four years, three months, and five days, World War I claimed some ten million lives. In ten months, Spanish influenza killed between twenty-one and forty million people." A staggering number of people died world-wide and a vast number were ill with this deadly strain of influenza. A major impact on many, many lives but not much acknowledged or remembered. Interesting in light of recent Swine flu activity.
February 27, 2008
One of the more interesting books that I have read recently. I had no idea that the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic was as horrifying as it was, and I am left wondering WHY the Black Death receives so much more attention from scholars, documentary filmmakers, and etc.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in American (or world) history. The author writes with a narrative style, using lots of first-person accounts, and so it is very accessible.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in American (or world) history. The author writes with a narrative style, using lots of first-person accounts, and so it is very accessible.
October 25, 2008
I wanted this book to be much more informative than it actually was. Too much rehashed information. Death, dying, blah, blah, blah. I skimmed the last 100 pages. I wanted more, because this subject is fascinating to me, especially when you think about the pandemic flu that will happen in the hopefully not too near future.
December 7, 2008
Something must be sick about me, I just love books about epidemics. It's amazing how a germ can change the course of the world and how it went to every corner of the earth in these times. This epidemic killed more people than the war raging at the same time, yet is talked about a lot less. But we have family stories on both sides about its effects.
March 3, 2009
After reading this, bird flu jokes aren't quite so funny any more. This was a fascinating book about something that's rarely talked about in US History classes, partially because it took place during WWI, and partially because people were so frightened by it, that when it was over, they barely spoke about it.
November 3, 2013
Interesting in the beginning, but extremely repetitive. Just story after story about sick people. Not much bigger context or aftermath/impact about it. Just sick and dying sick and dying sick and dying over and over. Skimmed the second half.
January 24, 2017
I was aware of the devastation but not of the extent, 10%-20% mortality at the beginning and reaching 40%-50% in some circumstances. Horrifying contrast of the war effort in the face of disease, and of Wilson's insistence on sending troop ships to Europe, with so many dying of the flu in transit.
November 28, 2013
Absolutely fascinating!
March 6, 2010
a very good read and very humbling. A nice Ken Burns esque review of the horror of the fall of 1918.
June 2, 2012
My first history of medicine book (8 years ago)and I was hooked. It does a good job of explaining things for the layman.
Read
March 16, 2016The worst epidemic in American history
November 11, 2014
Excellent. Review coming soon on www.livritome.com.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews