"It was influenza, only influenza." The influenza pandemic of 1918 roughly lasted almost three years after it's start in the winter of 1918. The pandemic killed as many as 100 million people worldwide according to most recent estimates. It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. The Great Influenza is a story of both triumph and tragedy.
John M. Barry does a wonderful job describing to readers about not only how this strain of influenza killed but why this particular strain was so deadly. The book is extremely detailed about the state of medicine at that time that was still undergoing a revolution into the newest century. The book at times feels like something straight out of a science fiction or Stephen King novel but it was unfortunately all too real. The book focuses on those in the medical science field that would reshape the landscape in the United States and make it the place for scientific research in the world instead of being a second-class joke to Europe. These same people and their proteges would throw all their efforts into defeating influenza once it started. People like William Welch, Simon Flexner, Oswald Avery, William Park, Anna Williams, and Paul Lewis.
Barry makes it clear that although the pandemic couldn't have been prevented, the number of deaths could have been significantly less. However, the media at that time all attempted to reassure people that "it was influenza, only influenza." Barry goes into great detail about what happened in Philadelphia and other states as it was ravaged by influenza. He discusses how it got to the point where people would not even dare touch one another or trust one another. Fear was not only was common across the country but it took up residence wherever the pandemic hit. And there weren't too many places where influenza didn't hit in the United States.
"During the course of the epidemic, 47 percent of all deaths (emphasis mine) in the United States, nearly half of all those who died from all causes combined - from cancer, from heart disease, from stroke, from tuberculosis, from accidents, from suicide, from murder, and from all other causes - resulted from influenza and it's complications. And it killed enough people to depress the average life expectancy in the United States by more than ten years." Another thing different from this pandemic was that it attacked those in their 20's and 30's who would usually be considered the most healthy in these types of epidemics. Influenza had the potential to kill a perfectly healthy person within 12 hours in some cases.
The book itself is 465 pages including the afterword. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history, the development of medical science, or this time period. Although the book at times can seem too detailed, it does a wonderful job of giving the reader the information necessary to have a full understanding about what happened. Barry also does a wonderful job of breaking down complex topics in order to make it more understandable for the reader. This was certainly one of the best non-fiction books I've read.
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Link to the book on Amazon.
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