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Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 And the Search for the Virus That Caused It
The fascinating, true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it.
330 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
908 people are currently reading
10987 people want to read
About the author
Gina Kolata
32 books103 followersKolata graduated from the University of Maryland and studied molecular biology at the graduate level at MIT for a year and a half. Then she returned to the University of Maryland and obtained a master’s degree in applied mathematics. Kolata has taught writing as a visiting professor at Princeton University and frequently gives lectures across the country. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with her family.
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August 23, 2020
”This is a detective story. Here was a mass murderer that was around 80 years ago and who’s never been brought to justice. And what we’re trying to do is find the murderer.”--Jeffery Taubenberger, molecular pathologist
There are estimates that the 1918 Flu killed anywhere from 20 million to 100 million people dwarfing the number of people killed in World War One. Either number is horrifying, but as modern scientists start putting data together the larger number becomes more realistic. I’ve always been fascinated with the 1918 Flu outbreak for a number of reasons, but the one that really sticks with me is that we never defeated it. We never knocked it to the canvas. It came, it killed, it disappeared.
”Historian Alfred W. Crosby remarks that whatever the exact number felled by the 1918 flu, one thing is indisputable: the virus killed more humans than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.”
That is a big statement. It makes the Black Plague look like a featherweight. ”How lethal was it? It was twenty-five times more deadly than ordinary influenzas. This flu killed 2.5 percent of its victims. Normally just one-tenth of 1 percent of people who get the flu die. And since a fifth of the world’s population got the flu that year, including 28 percent of Americans, the number of deaths was stunning. So many died, in fact, that the average life span in the United States fell by twelve years in 1918. If such a plague came today, killing a similar fraction of the U. S. population, 1.5 million Americans would die.”
1918 Influenza Virus
Interest was reignited in the 1918 influenza outbreak when swine flu/bird flu showed up in the 1970s and again in the 1990s. China is a hot bed for new influenza bugs because of the proximity of birds/swine/humans. Many times you find all three species under the same roof. Birds cannot pass flu to humans, but they can pass it to swine. Swine, being a close genetic relative to humans, (not that surprising) can incubate a bird flu and pass it to humans. The moral of the story is that pigs, birds and humans should not wallow in the same mud hole. The current thought is that the 1918 flu came to humans via pigs via birds.
”In theory, a bird flu could not infect a human because the virus should require cellular enzymes found in bird intestinal cells but not in human lung cells. Yet if, against all odds, a bird flu virus was infecting people, it would have hemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins that had never been seen before by a human being. No human would be immune to such a virus. The whole world was at risk.”
I know he is cute, but he is a deadly assassin.
So there is this very unfortunate pig who becomes infected with a human virus and a bird virus at the same time. He becomes a blender for these two viruses and the next time a human scratches him behind the ears, most likely a child (wonderful incubators), he will pass the new concoction on to humanity which is tragic on many levels, but for the pig especially because who will fill his slop trough if his humans are critically sick.
Before HIV appeared on the scene which would shift all infectious disease researchers in that direction there were teams of scientists searching for samples of the 1918 flu. As is the case with a publish or perish society scientists are not very good at sharing informations, so as one team goes to Alaska to look for victims of the 1918 flu, hopefully still frozen in permafrost, another team is planning to go to an island of Norway with the same thought. When the Alaska team finds a perfectly preserved specimen that information of course is not shared with the rivals even though there was a scientist coordinating both teams. Johan Hultin is the man who makes the find.
”She was an obese woman; she had fat in her skin and around her organs and that served as a protection from the occasional short-term thawing of permafrost.” Hultin explained. “Those on either side of her were not obese and they had decayed. I sat on the pail and saw this woman in a state of good preservation. And I knew that this was where the virus has got to come from, shedding light on the mysteries of 1918.”
Johan Hultin virus detective.
I would hope, and firmly believe that if the world was on the brink of a major pandemic that scientists would pool their research and share any breakthroughs before publishing (being credited) their findings. During the course of this investigation they also found paraffin preserved lung tissue from victims of the 1918 flu stored at the National Tissue Repository maintained by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Nice to know we have such a handy repository of our disease history.
When a deadly influenza swine flu virus showed up in 1976 President Gerald Ford took the initiative ( I know right who would have thunk it.) that for the first time in human history the government was going to try and immunize the whole country. The press was favorable in the beginning of the program, but papers like the New York Post started to turn the tide towards government conspiracy theories. They wrote on October 14th and article That spoke of a seventy-five-year-old woman who winced at the sting of the hypodermic, then had taken a few feeble steps and dropped dead. Then on October 25th, ”the paper suggested that Carol Gambino, the mobster, had been killed by the Mafia using a swine flu shot as the deadly weapon”.
These misguided, uninformed, paranoid beliefs are laughable, but with politicians like Michelle Bachman and with radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh who are suspicious of any government programs, especially if a Democrat is in the White House, and are very loud about their opposition; I’m sure a similar program to try and stop a nasty flu bug before it got started would be met with heavy unwarranted criticism that could ultimately cost a lot of lives. If the 1918 influenza were to appear today we have antibiotics to counter the bacteria that floods the weakened lungs (pneumonia killed as many or more people than the virus) of a virus ridden body so death counts would be reduced from the 1918 level, but due to the efforts of a handful of scientists we do have the ability now to immunize a population if they will let us.
Gina Kolata has taken me on an investigative adventure that not only made science fascinating, but also accessible. I’m scared, but less scared because I have confidence in the ability of our best and brightest to keep the worst nightmares at bay if only we give them the means and we listen to them before the tip over point has been attained.
There are estimates that the 1918 Flu killed anywhere from 20 million to 100 million people dwarfing the number of people killed in World War One. Either number is horrifying, but as modern scientists start putting data together the larger number becomes more realistic. I’ve always been fascinated with the 1918 Flu outbreak for a number of reasons, but the one that really sticks with me is that we never defeated it. We never knocked it to the canvas. It came, it killed, it disappeared.
”Historian Alfred W. Crosby remarks that whatever the exact number felled by the 1918 flu, one thing is indisputable: the virus killed more humans than any other disease in a period of similar duration in the history of the world.”
That is a big statement. It makes the Black Plague look like a featherweight. ”How lethal was it? It was twenty-five times more deadly than ordinary influenzas. This flu killed 2.5 percent of its victims. Normally just one-tenth of 1 percent of people who get the flu die. And since a fifth of the world’s population got the flu that year, including 28 percent of Americans, the number of deaths was stunning. So many died, in fact, that the average life span in the United States fell by twelve years in 1918. If such a plague came today, killing a similar fraction of the U. S. population, 1.5 million Americans would die.”
1918 Influenza Virus
Interest was reignited in the 1918 influenza outbreak when swine flu/bird flu showed up in the 1970s and again in the 1990s. China is a hot bed for new influenza bugs because of the proximity of birds/swine/humans. Many times you find all three species under the same roof. Birds cannot pass flu to humans, but they can pass it to swine. Swine, being a close genetic relative to humans, (not that surprising) can incubate a bird flu and pass it to humans. The moral of the story is that pigs, birds and humans should not wallow in the same mud hole. The current thought is that the 1918 flu came to humans via pigs via birds.
”In theory, a bird flu could not infect a human because the virus should require cellular enzymes found in bird intestinal cells but not in human lung cells. Yet if, against all odds, a bird flu virus was infecting people, it would have hemagglutinin and neuraminidase proteins that had never been seen before by a human being. No human would be immune to such a virus. The whole world was at risk.”
I know he is cute, but he is a deadly assassin.
So there is this very unfortunate pig who becomes infected with a human virus and a bird virus at the same time. He becomes a blender for these two viruses and the next time a human scratches him behind the ears, most likely a child (wonderful incubators), he will pass the new concoction on to humanity which is tragic on many levels, but for the pig especially because who will fill his slop trough if his humans are critically sick.
Before HIV appeared on the scene which would shift all infectious disease researchers in that direction there were teams of scientists searching for samples of the 1918 flu. As is the case with a publish or perish society scientists are not very good at sharing informations, so as one team goes to Alaska to look for victims of the 1918 flu, hopefully still frozen in permafrost, another team is planning to go to an island of Norway with the same thought. When the Alaska team finds a perfectly preserved specimen that information of course is not shared with the rivals even though there was a scientist coordinating both teams. Johan Hultin is the man who makes the find.
”She was an obese woman; she had fat in her skin and around her organs and that served as a protection from the occasional short-term thawing of permafrost.” Hultin explained. “Those on either side of her were not obese and they had decayed. I sat on the pail and saw this woman in a state of good preservation. And I knew that this was where the virus has got to come from, shedding light on the mysteries of 1918.”
Johan Hultin virus detective.
I would hope, and firmly believe that if the world was on the brink of a major pandemic that scientists would pool their research and share any breakthroughs before publishing (being credited) their findings. During the course of this investigation they also found paraffin preserved lung tissue from victims of the 1918 flu stored at the National Tissue Repository maintained by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Nice to know we have such a handy repository of our disease history.
When a deadly influenza swine flu virus showed up in 1976 President Gerald Ford took the initiative ( I know right who would have thunk it.) that for the first time in human history the government was going to try and immunize the whole country. The press was favorable in the beginning of the program, but papers like the New York Post started to turn the tide towards government conspiracy theories. They wrote on October 14th and article That spoke of a seventy-five-year-old woman who winced at the sting of the hypodermic, then had taken a few feeble steps and dropped dead. Then on October 25th, ”the paper suggested that Carol Gambino, the mobster, had been killed by the Mafia using a swine flu shot as the deadly weapon”.
These misguided, uninformed, paranoid beliefs are laughable, but with politicians like Michelle Bachman and with radio talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh who are suspicious of any government programs, especially if a Democrat is in the White House, and are very loud about their opposition; I’m sure a similar program to try and stop a nasty flu bug before it got started would be met with heavy unwarranted criticism that could ultimately cost a lot of lives. If the 1918 influenza were to appear today we have antibiotics to counter the bacteria that floods the weakened lungs (pneumonia killed as many or more people than the virus) of a virus ridden body so death counts would be reduced from the 1918 level, but due to the efforts of a handful of scientists we do have the ability now to immunize a population if they will let us.
Gina Kolata has taken me on an investigative adventure that not only made science fascinating, but also accessible. I’m scared, but less scared because I have confidence in the ability of our best and brightest to keep the worst nightmares at bay if only we give them the means and we listen to them before the tip over point has been attained.
August 4, 2008
I love a good disease book. And I think the 1918 flu is just about as fascinating as you can get. But this book talks more about theories and old-timey labs than it does about the human side of this epidemic. Which, let's face it, is what's really interesting. Imagine all of a sudden having a common illness sweep through your community and kill young healthy people so fast that you don't even have time to bury them right. That's some serious shit. This book just didn't do it justice. I would like to find another that maybe does a better job.
That being said, this lady's name is Gina Kolata. If you like Gina Kolata, and getting caught in the rain...
That being said, this lady's name is Gina Kolata. If you like Gina Kolata, and getting caught in the rain...
Read
April 8, 2020Did not finish.
If you're looking for a book about what it was like to experience the 1918 flu pandemic, this is not the book you want. The title of this book should be The Search for the Virus That Caused the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. It starts off with a little bit about the actual pandemic, and the rest of the book is long detailed histories of all the doctors and researchers who tried to figure out how the virus worked, where it came from, and if it had somehow survived for decades in the bodies of those who died from it. There's also quite a lot of discussion of other pandemics of the 20th century, and the efforts to discover if those viruses were somehow "descendants" of that 1918 strain.
This is the third book I have started and abandoned in my quest to find a book that provides a narrative of what it was like to actually live through the 1918 pandemic. Onward!
If you're looking for a book about what it was like to experience the 1918 flu pandemic, this is not the book you want. The title of this book should be The Search for the Virus That Caused the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. It starts off with a little bit about the actual pandemic, and the rest of the book is long detailed histories of all the doctors and researchers who tried to figure out how the virus worked, where it came from, and if it had somehow survived for decades in the bodies of those who died from it. There's also quite a lot of discussion of other pandemics of the 20th century, and the efforts to discover if those viruses were somehow "descendants" of that 1918 strain.
This is the third book I have started and abandoned in my quest to find a book that provides a narrative of what it was like to actually live through the 1918 pandemic. Onward!
April 24, 2021
I think I chose the wrong book to read about the 1918 pandemic.
Journalist and science writer Gina Kolata takes us on a wild-goose-chase to find the virus behind the mysterious and deadly flu pandemic that killed from 20 million to possibly 100 million people worldwide. It was an interesting perspective from the pre-Covid world but not much in terms of science writing or history or anything much coming from this "investigation." The mysterious nature of the virus itself is never solved. If anything, I came away feeling that it didn't even matter if they found it so much as the important thing was how do we deal with the possibility that "a killer virus was lurking." Scientists of the time thought that the virus weakened with the mutations; our mainstream scientists are warning us about "variants." Looking at history, all epidemics and pandemics fade away. Survivors come out stronger. They have antibodies that makes them stronger for the next influenza or plague.
Something of interest I want to highlight: early scientists of the pandemic recruited volunteers (prisoners) to expose themselves to the virus by visiting bedside those who had the influenza. They subjected themselves to being coughed on, sneezed on and even injected with it. NOT ONE volunteer became sick with the virus. The scientists were mystified. If it's not directly contagious, how is it spreading?
The most difficult passage of this book was the description of this tragic plague. Gina Kolata, writing in 1999, with a certain bewilderment at their "wearing surgical masks in a vain attempt to ward off the virus" --they attended public, outdoor events wearing masks and much like today, the people of the time became divided on the best course. Some throwing caution to the wind and living their best life now as a way of dealing with this terror. After the pandemic was over, the world became silent about this. It was such a traumatic event that it was largely forgotten in our history books. The Encyclopedia Britannica gave it a mere 3 lines. The novel by Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway" is the central character who carries this trauma with her, a silence. That was the legacy of this pandemic- silence.
I did not enjoy this book. I wanted more about the actual pandemic (which had scant info and a brief mention) and I wanted more on virology itself. What there mostly is is so much background--irrelevant to the most interesting threads- the history and the "virus."
It ends not with answers but more questions and empty speculation on how much "better understanding" we would have for the next pandemic.
Journalist and science writer Gina Kolata takes us on a wild-goose-chase to find the virus behind the mysterious and deadly flu pandemic that killed from 20 million to possibly 100 million people worldwide. It was an interesting perspective from the pre-Covid world but not much in terms of science writing or history or anything much coming from this "investigation." The mysterious nature of the virus itself is never solved. If anything, I came away feeling that it didn't even matter if they found it so much as the important thing was how do we deal with the possibility that "a killer virus was lurking." Scientists of the time thought that the virus weakened with the mutations; our mainstream scientists are warning us about "variants." Looking at history, all epidemics and pandemics fade away. Survivors come out stronger. They have antibodies that makes them stronger for the next influenza or plague.
Something of interest I want to highlight: early scientists of the pandemic recruited volunteers (prisoners) to expose themselves to the virus by visiting bedside those who had the influenza. They subjected themselves to being coughed on, sneezed on and even injected with it. NOT ONE volunteer became sick with the virus. The scientists were mystified. If it's not directly contagious, how is it spreading?
The most difficult passage of this book was the description of this tragic plague. Gina Kolata, writing in 1999, with a certain bewilderment at their "wearing surgical masks in a vain attempt to ward off the virus" --they attended public, outdoor events wearing masks and much like today, the people of the time became divided on the best course. Some throwing caution to the wind and living their best life now as a way of dealing with this terror. After the pandemic was over, the world became silent about this. It was such a traumatic event that it was largely forgotten in our history books. The Encyclopedia Britannica gave it a mere 3 lines. The novel by Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway" is the central character who carries this trauma with her, a silence. That was the legacy of this pandemic- silence.
I did not enjoy this book. I wanted more about the actual pandemic (which had scant info and a brief mention) and I wanted more on virology itself. What there mostly is is so much background--irrelevant to the most interesting threads- the history and the "virus."
It ends not with answers but more questions and empty speculation on how much "better understanding" we would have for the next pandemic.
September 23, 2016
Outstanding book with lots of scientific info. So much time and energy was spent by many, many people to find out the cause of the 1918 flu pandemic but alas not definitive answer has yet been found. Will it ever come? This was a really well written, extremely easy to understand and informative read. I recommend this one!
May 22, 2013
This book was just excellent and that's all that needs to be said.
I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in medical history and likes Germ Theory. Why I didn't study science at university instead of the arts is beyond me.
I recommend it to anyone who has an interest in medical history and likes Germ Theory. Why I didn't study science at university instead of the arts is beyond me.
December 19, 2015
Unfortunately I found the writing horribly awkward and clunky. And worst of all for me, extremely repetitive and long-winded. I'm fairly certain the book could have been at least a third shorter if the redundancies, unnecessary re-explanations, barely related tangents, and overly wordy sentences had been pruned. It brings to mind the way I was taught to write as a history major in college and so many dry history books I had to read: more words are always better, and it's good to restate the same things several times with slightly different wording. The two stars are for the wonderful book this could have been if the fascinating science and history had not been buried beneath all that terrible prose.
March 12, 2020
Outstanding. I picked it up a second time because it's in my interests, without recognizing it. It was outstanding the second time through, so I finished it again.
***
Mar 12,
2020Came up today, since the '18 flu turned out to be H1N1. Good reading for perspective on science and outbreaks.
***
Mar 12,
2020Came up today, since the '18 flu turned out to be H1N1. Good reading for perspective on science and outbreaks.
April 5, 2020
The title is a little bit of a misnomer. It's not so much a history of the pandemic -- just a portion of the first chapter is devoted to that -- as a history of the efforts of scientists subsequent to the actual pandemic to understand where it came from and why it was so lethal. As many as 100 million killed worldwide. The book is also frustrating, because it ends without any resolution to those questions, but with a tease that results are just around the corner. It was published in 1999, so I'm hoping there may be something more recent that may provide some answers.
That said, it was a very good read. Well written, compelling, almost like a detective story, with interesting characters throughout. A reasonable amount of technical biological detail about the virus was handled well. Not too heavy for a non-scientist.
That said, it was a very good read. Well written, compelling, almost like a detective story, with interesting characters throughout. A reasonable amount of technical biological detail about the virus was handled well. Not too heavy for a non-scientist.
December 9, 2016
A good book on the deadly, ill named, spanish flu because today nobody knows where exactly this pandemia begun.
The book is devoted to the history,epidemiology and investigation of this letal virus,that killed over 50 million humans arroun the world in the 1918 pandemia ,the most letal after the black dead,and its final reconstruction by means of frozen inuit lungs,dead by the disease, in the alaskan permafrost
The book is devoted to the history,epidemiology and investigation of this letal virus,that killed over 50 million humans arroun the world in the 1918 pandemia ,the most letal after the black dead,and its final reconstruction by means of frozen inuit lungs,dead by the disease, in the alaskan permafrost
April 5, 2020
"Flu" is a quick, easy, read that skims over the 1918 Pandemic and introduces the reader to the current science of influenza.
However, the book draws no solid conclusions, and has no real ending. It also leaves threads hanging at the conclusion. (We are never told from what virus strain (H1N1) the recovered RNA indicated the 1918 flu belonged. Finally, the chatty biographies of the books personalities were really annoying to have to wade through. (Does it really matter that Kirsty Duncan does Celtic dancing?)
What I am most grateful for is the book's introducing me to Crosby's America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. Pass this book up and go straight to America's Forgotten Pandemic.
However, the book draws no solid conclusions, and has no real ending. It also leaves threads hanging at the conclusion. (We are never told from what virus strain (H1N1) the recovered RNA indicated the 1918 flu belonged. Finally, the chatty biographies of the books personalities were really annoying to have to wade through. (Does it really matter that Kirsty Duncan does Celtic dancing?)
What I am most grateful for is the book's introducing me to Crosby's America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918. Pass this book up and go straight to America's Forgotten Pandemic.
January 26, 2021
There are two critical remarks about this book. First, it does not tell the story of the 1918 disaster, or at least deals with it in an extremely brief manner; which is, in my opinion, a good thing, because there are several books which do exactly that, with lots of (actually, too much of) details, and adding to that is probably unnecessary. Second, it was written in 1999 or so, and it stops short of telling what the heck happened with the found samples, whether the 'Spanish Flu' could be revived and so on; molecular biology was in its infancy, lots of things which are absolutely mundane now had been groundbreaking; a sequel, or at least an additional chapter, would be necessary. This said, this is an extremely vivid and colorful tale of the post-1918 world and post-1918 flu scares; today, against the covid background, it seems even more powerful. The story of two trips to Alaska to find the frozen victims of the Spanish Flu is absolutely priceless (it is recounted in other sources and books on the subject, but nowhere with such attention to detail and such brio).
September 19, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. The book covers a range of time from the beginning of the 1918-19 flu right up to still lingering questions about what made that particular flu strain so deadly and why it affected the young and healthy as much as the elderly and very young.
I really learned a lot about the Flu and about the fight to determine its origins and genetic composition. Some of the things in this book mirrored [Book:The Great Influenza:The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History], although I've found that of the three or four books I've read recently, none of them mention one symptom that John M. Barry focused on which is a sometimes altered personality for Flu survivors. (In fact, Barry attributes Woodrow Wilson's treatment of the League of Nations to a personalty change brought on by the Flu).
Flu is so rich I hardly know where to begin. In the course of reading the book I learned about a national repository of tissues samples which was put into place by Abraham Lincoln (the thing is beyond huge and a treasure trove of information), a massive and ultimately failed attempt to vaccinate the American public against a swine flu in the 1970s (which may well be a partial explanation for why some people so mistrust vaccines), and the route another deadly flu is likely to take. I gained an understanding of why some in the medical community were so worried about avian flu. It's thought that the 1918-19 flu may well have started in bird, passed to pigs where it mixed with a human flu, and was then transmitted to humans. I also have a better understanding of why (nearly?) every strain of flu has started in southeast Asia (it has to do with a farming system that encourages birds and pigs raised in close proximity).
One of the most fascinating aspects of the book (for me) was that in the beginning when the first group of people attempted to dig up corpses long buried in permafrost with absolutely no protection whatsoever or even any thought about the fact that they might unleash another wave of the 1918-19 flu and kill millions, it seems horrible. By the end the amazing precautions another group wants to take when trying to do the same thing seem downright silly.
I also think it's very interesting that the people who made the biggest strides in uncovering the origins and genetic structure of the Spanish Flu were not scientists who had made studying the Flu their focus. Indeed, one of the people who helped tremendously was a "lowly" lab technician.
The end of the book is in some ways very frustrating because there is still no answer to why that particular flu was so deadly and there were a good five or six promising investigations that were started or yet to be started and I really wanted to know how they turned out.
I really learned a lot about the Flu and about the fight to determine its origins and genetic composition. Some of the things in this book mirrored [Book:The Great Influenza:The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History], although I've found that of the three or four books I've read recently, none of them mention one symptom that John M. Barry focused on which is a sometimes altered personality for Flu survivors. (In fact, Barry attributes Woodrow Wilson's treatment of the League of Nations to a personalty change brought on by the Flu).
Flu is so rich I hardly know where to begin. In the course of reading the book I learned about a national repository of tissues samples which was put into place by Abraham Lincoln (the thing is beyond huge and a treasure trove of information), a massive and ultimately failed attempt to vaccinate the American public against a swine flu in the 1970s (which may well be a partial explanation for why some people so mistrust vaccines), and the route another deadly flu is likely to take. I gained an understanding of why some in the medical community were so worried about avian flu. It's thought that the 1918-19 flu may well have started in bird, passed to pigs where it mixed with a human flu, and was then transmitted to humans. I also have a better understanding of why (nearly?) every strain of flu has started in southeast Asia (it has to do with a farming system that encourages birds and pigs raised in close proximity).
One of the most fascinating aspects of the book (for me) was that in the beginning when the first group of people attempted to dig up corpses long buried in permafrost with absolutely no protection whatsoever or even any thought about the fact that they might unleash another wave of the 1918-19 flu and kill millions, it seems horrible. By the end the amazing precautions another group wants to take when trying to do the same thing seem downright silly.
I also think it's very interesting that the people who made the biggest strides in uncovering the origins and genetic structure of the Spanish Flu were not scientists who had made studying the Flu their focus. Indeed, one of the people who helped tremendously was a "lowly" lab technician.
The end of the book is in some ways very frustrating because there is still no answer to why that particular flu was so deadly and there were a good five or six promising investigations that were started or yet to be started and I really wanted to know how they turned out.
July 5, 2019
This book has received mixed reviews, because the title is something of a bait and switch. The great influenza of 1918 is covered in Chapter One. The rest of the book is about how the memory of that worldwide pandemic has affected modern epidemiology. It discusses some of history’s great epidemics, the search for the 1918 virus after it had disappeared from the population, and the way it influenced decision making in later years when virulent strains appeared and a response had to be developed that took into account the possibility of another worldwide pandemic. It is interesting, written for a general audience and published in 2001, but for those who want something more specific to the 1918 pandemic, there are more focused books, such as John Barry’s The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, from 2005, and Laura Spinney’s Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World, published in 2017.
There are two chapters dealing with the Swine Flu panic in 1976 and its litigious aftermath. They are informative and well written, going step by step through the decision making processes of the people involved, each trying to weigh the risk of the tiny chance of a disastrous outbreak against the time, expense, and consequences of large scale vaccinations. Everyone was trying to do the right things, but as the consensus built it became harder and harder for people who disagreed to make their voices known. One of the dissenters posed a question that, in hindsight, was so incisive that his name became a shorthand for how to stop runaway consensus, the “Alexander question.”
Had he pressed his concerns more forcefully he might have changed the outcome of the debate, but he did not, and was ignored. President Ford and Congress were convinced to appropriate $135 million to prepare vast quantities of the vaccine and inoculate the entire population of the United States.
It was a debacle. Swine Flu never reappeared, the massive push to prepare enough vaccine meant that not enough vaccine for that year’s normal strain of flu was made, and the floodgates of litigation were open.
There is also a chapter on the Bird Flu incident in Hong Kong in 1997. Memories of Swine Flu constrained the choices of the epidemiologists and researchers, who were once again facing the prospect of a new strain of the virus, one which seemed to have mutated directly from birds into a human-contagious form which mankind had never been exposed to, and thus would have no resistance against. In the end millions of chickens, ducks, and other fowl were killed, which might (or might not) have prevented further outbreaks.
The book has chapters on two different attempts to find the virus in the bodies of people who died from it in 1918 and who were buried in permafrost, which might have preserved it. A lot of detail is given these expeditions, including biographies of the researchers, the obstacles they encountered, the people they met, the weather, and how they exhumed the bodies and took samples. For all of that, one was a complete bust, because frost heave had raised the bodies into the zone of annual melting, destroying any traces of the virus. In the other expedition only fragments of the virus were found, which were painstakingly sequenced to gradually build up a partial view of the killer from 1918. Since the book was published a great deal more has been learned from additional exhumations and better sequencing tools.
Every year new strains of flu emerge, and we must all live with the knowledge that any one of them could start a worldwide pandemic. With a better understanding of virology and advances in healthcare, the odds of a repeat of 1918 are unlikely in the advanced countries, but even there it would take months to create enough vaccine for all who would need it. For the majority of the world’s population, lacking sanitation and access to effective healthcare, it would be a killer on a massive scale, and with international air travel it could spread across the globe in a matter of days. We should not feel too confident that we can avoid pandemics in the future.
There are two chapters dealing with the Swine Flu panic in 1976 and its litigious aftermath. They are informative and well written, going step by step through the decision making processes of the people involved, each trying to weigh the risk of the tiny chance of a disastrous outbreak against the time, expense, and consequences of large scale vaccinations. Everyone was trying to do the right things, but as the consensus built it became harder and harder for people who disagreed to make their voices known. One of the dissenters posed a question that, in hindsight, was so incisive that his name became a shorthand for how to stop runaway consensus, the “Alexander question.”
[His] question was brilliantly simple. He asked what information might make the group change its mind about the need to prepare to immunize the nation against swine flu? Would it be evidence that every swine flu case was mild? Or that no one but the Fort Dix soldiers got the swine flu? Would it make a difference what the timing of the outbreaks was or where they occurred? (p. 142)
Had he pressed his concerns more forcefully he might have changed the outcome of the debate, but he did not, and was ignored. President Ford and Congress were convinced to appropriate $135 million to prepare vast quantities of the vaccine and inoculate the entire population of the United States.
It was a debacle. Swine Flu never reappeared, the massive push to prepare enough vaccine meant that not enough vaccine for that year’s normal strain of flu was made, and the floodgates of litigation were open.
Dr. Hans H. Neumann, who was director of preventive medicine at the New Haven Department of Health, explained the problem in a letter to the New York Times. He wrote that if Americans have flu shots in the numbers predicted, as many as 2,300 will have strokes and 7,000 will have heart attacks within two days of being immunized. “Why? Because that is the number statistically expected, flu shots or no flu shots,” he wrote. “Yet can one expect a person who received a flu shot at noon and who that same night had a stroke not to associate somehow the two in his mind? Post hoc, ergo proter hoc,” he added. (p. 161)
There is also a chapter on the Bird Flu incident in Hong Kong in 1997. Memories of Swine Flu constrained the choices of the epidemiologists and researchers, who were once again facing the prospect of a new strain of the virus, one which seemed to have mutated directly from birds into a human-contagious form which mankind had never been exposed to, and thus would have no resistance against. In the end millions of chickens, ducks, and other fowl were killed, which might (or might not) have prevented further outbreaks.
The book has chapters on two different attempts to find the virus in the bodies of people who died from it in 1918 and who were buried in permafrost, which might have preserved it. A lot of detail is given these expeditions, including biographies of the researchers, the obstacles they encountered, the people they met, the weather, and how they exhumed the bodies and took samples. For all of that, one was a complete bust, because frost heave had raised the bodies into the zone of annual melting, destroying any traces of the virus. In the other expedition only fragments of the virus were found, which were painstakingly sequenced to gradually build up a partial view of the killer from 1918. Since the book was published a great deal more has been learned from additional exhumations and better sequencing tools.
Every year new strains of flu emerge, and we must all live with the knowledge that any one of them could start a worldwide pandemic. With a better understanding of virology and advances in healthcare, the odds of a repeat of 1918 are unlikely in the advanced countries, but even there it would take months to create enough vaccine for all who would need it. For the majority of the world’s population, lacking sanitation and access to effective healthcare, it would be a killer on a massive scale, and with international air travel it could spread across the globe in a matter of days. We should not feel too confident that we can avoid pandemics in the future.
December 18, 2018
When I wanted to acknowledge the centennial of the worst pandemic in history (yes, far worse than bubonic plague), I didn't know two new books had been released in 2018 by Catharine Arnold and Jeremy Brown, on the 1918 global flu pandemic. It was difficult to find Alfred Crosby's 1989 historical work, so I settled on Kolata's 1999 popular account, since I like her breezy yet scientifically accurate style. Funny thing is, based on synopses of the Arnold and Brown books, our knowledge of the 1918 flu has not expanded much in the 20 years since Kolata wrote this book.
The author begins her book by mentioning several funny things. She had a lifelong interest in health and infectious diseases, yet knew almost nothing about the pandemic. The more she probed, the more her ignorance made sense. The media in 1918 was strangely silent, and the victims' families and public health officials seemed almost embarrassed to talk about it, a scenario similar to the 1970s-80s early reaction on AIDS. Crosby and Kolata both attribute this to psychological numbing and wartime censorship -- the world had just ended a devastating global war, and no one seemed ready to confront another atrocity.
This book is not a definitive historical guide to what happened in 1918. One could turn to Crosby or Arnold for that. Instead, it operates as numerous detective stories, taking place immediately following the flu's decline, and in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s. Kolata does a good job of weaving these stories together, particularly the efforts to find bodies of victims frozen in the permafrost in order to gain virus samples. Along the way, Kolata talks about the swine flu vaccine misfire during the Ford administration in 1976, and the public health crisis over live chickens in Hong Kong in the late 1990s. Sometimes she goes far afield, in describing Johan Hultin's Alaska adventures in the 1950s, but her journeys are usually enjoyable ones. Other times, her character assessments seem a bit harsh, like her easy dismissal of Kirsty Duncan in the Spitzbergen expedition. (Duncan was appointed Minister of Science in Justin Trudeau's government in Canada, so one could say she had the last laugh.)
What emerges from Kolata's hopscotching across the decades is that science uses the tools available at the time, and often has to retrace its steps as new tools make it possible to conduct studies that were impossible decades earlier. But gaining clarity does not always mean gaining deeper understanding. We know that the 1918 flu was an H1N1 bird flu derivative, we know details of its protein coat, but we don't know why it was so astonishingly virulent, killing close to 100 million people worldwide. Kolata ends her book, not with a series of revelations, but with a series of new questions raised as researchers continued their viral studies at the end of 1999. The last possibility she raises turns out to be one that many scientists accept today: the strain of the virus itself was not particularly aggressive, since it arrived in two waves in early and late 1918 (and perhaps even in 1916-17 in France). Rather, most deaths were caused by an overreaction of the body's immune system, creating a cytokine storm that led to total respiratory failure.
We all now that the rapid mutation of the flu virus makes the annual flu vaccine offered by health authorities a crapshoot at best, though the vaccine is certainly better than nothing. But health authorities also must look at antibody histories of those receiving flu shots, to see if maybe a vaccine, or a particular flu strain, could trigger the kind of cytokine storm that led to a pandemic in its own right. A century later, we are still not close to unlocking all the mysteries of the 1918 flu. And our ability to avoid a future pandemic depends on our increasing our understanding fairly quickly. The problems of the 1976 vaccine show we must avoid making costly errors, as well.
The author begins her book by mentioning several funny things. She had a lifelong interest in health and infectious diseases, yet knew almost nothing about the pandemic. The more she probed, the more her ignorance made sense. The media in 1918 was strangely silent, and the victims' families and public health officials seemed almost embarrassed to talk about it, a scenario similar to the 1970s-80s early reaction on AIDS. Crosby and Kolata both attribute this to psychological numbing and wartime censorship -- the world had just ended a devastating global war, and no one seemed ready to confront another atrocity.
This book is not a definitive historical guide to what happened in 1918. One could turn to Crosby or Arnold for that. Instead, it operates as numerous detective stories, taking place immediately following the flu's decline, and in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s. Kolata does a good job of weaving these stories together, particularly the efforts to find bodies of victims frozen in the permafrost in order to gain virus samples. Along the way, Kolata talks about the swine flu vaccine misfire during the Ford administration in 1976, and the public health crisis over live chickens in Hong Kong in the late 1990s. Sometimes she goes far afield, in describing Johan Hultin's Alaska adventures in the 1950s, but her journeys are usually enjoyable ones. Other times, her character assessments seem a bit harsh, like her easy dismissal of Kirsty Duncan in the Spitzbergen expedition. (Duncan was appointed Minister of Science in Justin Trudeau's government in Canada, so one could say she had the last laugh.)
What emerges from Kolata's hopscotching across the decades is that science uses the tools available at the time, and often has to retrace its steps as new tools make it possible to conduct studies that were impossible decades earlier. But gaining clarity does not always mean gaining deeper understanding. We know that the 1918 flu was an H1N1 bird flu derivative, we know details of its protein coat, but we don't know why it was so astonishingly virulent, killing close to 100 million people worldwide. Kolata ends her book, not with a series of revelations, but with a series of new questions raised as researchers continued their viral studies at the end of 1999. The last possibility she raises turns out to be one that many scientists accept today: the strain of the virus itself was not particularly aggressive, since it arrived in two waves in early and late 1918 (and perhaps even in 1916-17 in France). Rather, most deaths were caused by an overreaction of the body's immune system, creating a cytokine storm that led to total respiratory failure.
We all now that the rapid mutation of the flu virus makes the annual flu vaccine offered by health authorities a crapshoot at best, though the vaccine is certainly better than nothing. But health authorities also must look at antibody histories of those receiving flu shots, to see if maybe a vaccine, or a particular flu strain, could trigger the kind of cytokine storm that led to a pandemic in its own right. A century later, we are still not close to unlocking all the mysteries of the 1918 flu. And our ability to avoid a future pandemic depends on our increasing our understanding fairly quickly. The problems of the 1976 vaccine show we must avoid making costly errors, as well.
July 31, 2009
The book was published in 1999, but it reads like it was written just a few weeks ago. The information Gina presents is so relevant to today that it's eerie. I am fascinated by the parts of history that our textbooks seem to forget, and the 1918 flu is probably one of the largest omissions in our historical texts. In it's two phases ( lighter spring outbreak, followed by the massively deadly fall outbreak) it managed to decrease the world population significantly and took out more lives than WW1 and WW2 combined. Utterly devastating and completely forgotten in popular culture. The book starts quickly diving right into historical narrative of the time. the first 5 or so chapters are fascinating, but start to drag a bit when the topic switches to the 1970's swine flu debacle. The book picks up again when the author starts telling the story of modern day scientists investigating the near century old virus. Gina does a great job in putting the potentially boring scientific details into a story that is both informative and entertaining. I highly recommend this book for any history buff, or even anyone interested gaining in depth perspective on what's happening with the H1N1 virus outbreak happening right now.
October 27, 2008
Right now, I'm thoroughly enjoying this read by NYT reporter Gina Kolata - it does seem odd that with the impact of the 1918 flu we haven't heard more about it or how it changed American life as we know it.
I had no idea Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider dealt with this topic, nor Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, so I am going to now read these two books after this one with a different context and knowledge base - which I hope will give me a deeper appreciation for both.
I'll be back with my concluding thoughts.
Okay, I'm back. I think this was a good, fast-paced interesting read until the end, when it devolved into scientific political struggles and a muddled message. I found it difficult to keep interest, but finished it because I felt I had invested so much in the story to that point, however the ending left a lot to be desired. It did, however, have a lot of end notes and an extensive bibliography.
I had no idea Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider dealt with this topic, nor Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, so I am going to now read these two books after this one with a different context and knowledge base - which I hope will give me a deeper appreciation for both.
I'll be back with my concluding thoughts.
Okay, I'm back. I think this was a good, fast-paced interesting read until the end, when it devolved into scientific political struggles and a muddled message. I found it difficult to keep interest, but finished it because I felt I had invested so much in the story to that point, however the ending left a lot to be desired. It did, however, have a lot of end notes and an extensive bibliography.
October 9, 2013
I thought that this informative book about an interesting topic, the influenza epidemic of 1918, made some complex scientific processes approachable by the lay reader. The book reads almost like a biography of influenza; informing readers about previous epidemics/pandemics; similarities and differences between known influenzas; the attempts, both failed and successful, to identify and isolate the various molecular fragments of the viral genes. The focus, of course, was what differentiated the 1918 pandemic from those previous. Why was it so deadly? How did it spread? How was it able to spread so quickly around the world? Who was vulnerable? Who wasn't? Why? Why? Why?
As of the date of publication, 1999, there were tantalizing bits of the mystery that were being slowly revealed through a myriad of scientific investigative techniques made possible by advances in technologies, but the major questions had still not been answered. I am curious enough to look further into the progress made in the intervening years.
Some interesting facts I gleaned from the book are: most flu strains originate in or around Guangdong (formerly Canton), China; the 1918 pandemic killed more than 20 million people in India, alone; there is a connection between the 1918 influenza and swine flu; in an attempt to find extant virus from 1918 flu victims, two different groups of scientists exhumed the graves of people known to have died of the flu. These graves were in permafrost areas of Alaska and Spitsbergen (a region of Norway just 800 miles from the Arctic Circle). The thought was that bodies buried in the permafrost, even decades ago, would deteriorate very, very slowly allowing for the possibility that soft tissue from the lungs of those corpses would still exist, samples of which could be taken and tested, using new technologies that, hopefully, would reveal the virus that caused the flu.
All in all FLU was a good read and very informative. If you are interested in science, medicine, or history this could be a book for you.
One criticism that I have of the book is that the author repeated herself a number of times, using phrasing that she had used before when writing about the same topic.
As of the date of publication, 1999, there were tantalizing bits of the mystery that were being slowly revealed through a myriad of scientific investigative techniques made possible by advances in technologies, but the major questions had still not been answered. I am curious enough to look further into the progress made in the intervening years.
Some interesting facts I gleaned from the book are: most flu strains originate in or around Guangdong (formerly Canton), China; the 1918 pandemic killed more than 20 million people in India, alone; there is a connection between the 1918 influenza and swine flu; in an attempt to find extant virus from 1918 flu victims, two different groups of scientists exhumed the graves of people known to have died of the flu. These graves were in permafrost areas of Alaska and Spitsbergen (a region of Norway just 800 miles from the Arctic Circle). The thought was that bodies buried in the permafrost, even decades ago, would deteriorate very, very slowly allowing for the possibility that soft tissue from the lungs of those corpses would still exist, samples of which could be taken and tested, using new technologies that, hopefully, would reveal the virus that caused the flu.
All in all FLU was a good read and very informative. If you are interested in science, medicine, or history this could be a book for you.
One criticism that I have of the book is that the author repeated herself a number of times, using phrasing that she had used before when writing about the same topic.
February 27, 2017
For me this book had a really rough start. Gina Kolata's writing about the events of the 1918 influenza pandemic almost made me put this book down. The best way I can describe it was that it was choppy without proper transitions. I had to keep going back to re-read passages to see if I missed something. Since it is such an interesting topic for me I stuck with it, and I am glad I did.
I almost wish this was described more of a history of influenza book instead of a weird murder mystery thriller. I found the writing of future outbreaks and their relation to the 1918 influenza much more bearable. I found myself often wondering if the same person even wrote those chapters after the initial discussion on the 1918 events.
I also think this book could really use an updated edition. Since this book was published Jeffery Taubenberger's years of work (as described in a very large portion of this book) finally paid off. In 2005, the CDC made the announcement that the 1918 influenza gene had finally been fully sequenced. It would also be great to add a chapter about the 2009 H1N1 pandemic as it closely relates to this.
I don't think this story will ever end. With my negative thoughts on the writing aside, I think this is an important book to read. Influenza is not as easy to interpret as everyone thinks it is and this book does do a great job in explaining why we shouldn't be complacent when it comes to preparing for the next deadly, perhaps inevitable, influenza outbreak.
I almost wish this was described more of a history of influenza book instead of a weird murder mystery thriller. I found the writing of future outbreaks and their relation to the 1918 influenza much more bearable. I found myself often wondering if the same person even wrote those chapters after the initial discussion on the 1918 events.
I also think this book could really use an updated edition. Since this book was published Jeffery Taubenberger's years of work (as described in a very large portion of this book) finally paid off. In 2005, the CDC made the announcement that the 1918 influenza gene had finally been fully sequenced. It would also be great to add a chapter about the 2009 H1N1 pandemic as it closely relates to this.
I don't think this story will ever end. With my negative thoughts on the writing aside, I think this is an important book to read. Influenza is not as easy to interpret as everyone thinks it is and this book does do a great job in explaining why we shouldn't be complacent when it comes to preparing for the next deadly, perhaps inevitable, influenza outbreak.
March 4, 2009
An interesting look at a part of our history that can get glossed over sometimes. Unfortunately, this was focused more on the science that went into deciphering the flu rather than the history of the flu itself. While it was an enlightening read, and some of the people who worked on this project were extremely driven, fascinating people, mostly it just made me want to read a good old fashioned history book about the influenza pandemic.
My one real issue was the completely unnecessary pages of lists that Kolata put in - naming every. single. doctor. who attended a particular conference, for instance. It's a waste of space and it mostly just made me drift, especially when two thirds of those doctors and scientists were never mentioned again.
My one real issue was the completely unnecessary pages of lists that Kolata put in - naming every. single. doctor. who attended a particular conference, for instance. It's a waste of space and it mostly just made me drift, especially when two thirds of those doctors and scientists were never mentioned again.
December 24, 2017
This was a fascinating look at the 1918 Influenza pandemic, but I always seem to run into the same problem with science books. The well-received and highly rated ones are often older, and by the time I get around to reading them, I wish for a more current look at the same topic. I would love to read about outbreaks we've had since 1999 when this was written, like SARS (which I know is not influenza) and the 2009 H1N1 flu.
February 24, 2022
Kolata presents the very slow and tedious work of scientific discovery in an exciting way. Not only does she research into the 1918 flu (with details of wiping out entire Alaskan villages and leaving multitudes of children orphaned)...but before that and a century after it and all the developments and foibles that have occurred regarding various influenzas. For example, she goes into detail about the close call of the Hong Kong bird flu in 1997, resulting in the slaughter of over a million chicken by the government to prevent the spread of the virus.
She demonstrates that those who deviate from scientific principles and a failure to act with humility, that history will view as fools. I never knew about the 1976 swine flu fiasco right here in Fort Dix and the overreaction to scant evidence. The entire description of the expedition to unearth 1918 victims in the permafrost with overly planned, tons of PR, and tons of grant money versus the purely scientific bare bones method just looking for answers in a efficient, logic way is fantastic. And of course, it's great when the obese Eskimo saves the day, where the fats preserves the virus and thus science advances. Fat-bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round...
She demonstrates that those who deviate from scientific principles and a failure to act with humility, that history will view as fools. I never knew about the 1976 swine flu fiasco right here in Fort Dix and the overreaction to scant evidence. The entire description of the expedition to unearth 1918 victims in the permafrost with overly planned, tons of PR, and tons of grant money versus the purely scientific bare bones method just looking for answers in a efficient, logic way is fantastic. And of course, it's great when the obese Eskimo saves the day, where the fats preserves the virus and thus science advances. Fat-bottomed girls you make the rocking world go round...
May 14, 2018
It was on one of my trips to Goodwill that when I was browsing the book section, I stumbled upon Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Kolata. Unlike the other books that were visibly used and dog eared, this book seemed almost untouched. I bought the book for $1, still shocked about the condition of the book, this being the reason I picked up the book; that and the fact that I was immediately reminded of Rupert Holmes’ song “Escape” after seeing the authors name above the blue, almost infectious looking title, “Flu”.
It’s 1918, and thousands of people have perished within the span of a couple of months, thousands more fear that they may be next. What was to blame? World War 1? No. The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 was to blame. Gina Kolata tells us the story of the mysterious influenza virus that spread throughout the world in 1918. As well as the story of the influenza outbreak that occurred in several military camps and various other locations, Kolata tells the stories of the numerous scientists who studied the virus in attempts to learn about the origins of the deadly virus and the attempts to find a vaccine to thwart future pandemics that would be similar to that of 1918.
The story of the influenza pandemic is told in two ways: through a collection of facts and data and also through personal accounts of scientists studying the virus, as well as those who witnessed the spreading of the virus. One such example was when Kolata describes how a pastor in a small eskimo village in Alaska witnessed more than half of the village’s population die from the influenza virus. Personally, I found it more interesting to read the parts of the book that were told through personal accounts of the people who were affected by the virus. I feel like I could connect more to their stories about how they watched their whole family and almost entire town perish from the likes of the flu. While reading parts of the books that were focused on facts and data, it was harder to follow with all the facts that were being thrown at you. I also found myself skimming over these parts most of the time. Through this book, Kolata tells the story of the “spanish flu” pandemic and tries to find answers to one of history’s biggest medical mysteries.
Typically when we think of the flu, we think of it as harmless, but the way Kolata describes the Flu, in the case of the pandemic of 1918, she brings truth to what the flu actually was like. When she says, “Then it disappeared, returning in the fall with the power of a juggernaut”(8) we see just how monstrous this flu is. Gina Kolata also doesn’t hesitate to include gruesome details of the effects of this influenza, “...your body feebly cries out ‘no,’ you are moving steadily toward death… you die- by drowning, actually-as your lungs fill with a reddish fluid”(4). With these gruesome details, readers get a glimpse into the suffering and pain that those affected by the influenza virus had to undergo. This also puts emphasis on how Gina Kolata wants us to see the massive impact that this virus had on people.
In writing this book, Gina Kolata also sheds light on this pandemic that is hardly mentioned in the history books to inform us about this major pandemic that occurred. Gina Kolata makes sure to emphasize this is instances such as: “Crosby looked at a recent edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The 1918 flu got three sentences. He looked at a recent edition of the Encyclopedia Americana. One sentence was devoted to the flu, and it said that the epidemic killed 21 million people. ‘Which was a gross understatement [since it killed roughly 51 million people]”(52). The fact that many people have such little knowledge on such an important event that has taken place in history is why Gina Kolata has written this book. Because of this, the idea of this being such an important event is highly stressed throughout the book.
Often times, I found that throughout the book, the writing didn’t keep me engaged. The information was very repetitive and I found that there also was a lot of unnecessary information. For example, whenever one of the chapter’s would delve into the life of the scientist that was being focused on in that chapter, there was information included that seemed very unnecessary. For example, “He was born in Stockholm and grew up in a wealthy home in the suburbs of the capital city…” Gina Kolata writes when describing Johan V. Hultin, a scientist who made a significant discovery with the Spanish flu virus. It then continues for several more pages as Kolata writes about Hilton's whole life leading up to his scientific work, which I believe was unnecessary and keeps readers distracted from the main idea of the book.
Even though Flu had some flaws, I found it a good book to read if your interested in learning more about the influenza virus. I would also recommend it to those who are interested in microorganisms and bio-medicine. This book is filled with interesting stories of the deadly influenza virus that took place in 1918, along with the decades long journey of finding the vaccine.
If this were a book that were at least $15, I wouldn’t say it was worth it. But, even though it may not have been what I was expecting when first purchasing this book at Goodwill, I would say that it was $1 well spent.
It’s 1918, and thousands of people have perished within the span of a couple of months, thousands more fear that they may be next. What was to blame? World War 1? No. The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 was to blame. Gina Kolata tells us the story of the mysterious influenza virus that spread throughout the world in 1918. As well as the story of the influenza outbreak that occurred in several military camps and various other locations, Kolata tells the stories of the numerous scientists who studied the virus in attempts to learn about the origins of the deadly virus and the attempts to find a vaccine to thwart future pandemics that would be similar to that of 1918.
The story of the influenza pandemic is told in two ways: through a collection of facts and data and also through personal accounts of scientists studying the virus, as well as those who witnessed the spreading of the virus. One such example was when Kolata describes how a pastor in a small eskimo village in Alaska witnessed more than half of the village’s population die from the influenza virus. Personally, I found it more interesting to read the parts of the book that were told through personal accounts of the people who were affected by the virus. I feel like I could connect more to their stories about how they watched their whole family and almost entire town perish from the likes of the flu. While reading parts of the books that were focused on facts and data, it was harder to follow with all the facts that were being thrown at you. I also found myself skimming over these parts most of the time. Through this book, Kolata tells the story of the “spanish flu” pandemic and tries to find answers to one of history’s biggest medical mysteries.
Typically when we think of the flu, we think of it as harmless, but the way Kolata describes the Flu, in the case of the pandemic of 1918, she brings truth to what the flu actually was like. When she says, “Then it disappeared, returning in the fall with the power of a juggernaut”(8) we see just how monstrous this flu is. Gina Kolata also doesn’t hesitate to include gruesome details of the effects of this influenza, “...your body feebly cries out ‘no,’ you are moving steadily toward death… you die- by drowning, actually-as your lungs fill with a reddish fluid”(4). With these gruesome details, readers get a glimpse into the suffering and pain that those affected by the influenza virus had to undergo. This also puts emphasis on how Gina Kolata wants us to see the massive impact that this virus had on people.
In writing this book, Gina Kolata also sheds light on this pandemic that is hardly mentioned in the history books to inform us about this major pandemic that occurred. Gina Kolata makes sure to emphasize this is instances such as: “Crosby looked at a recent edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The 1918 flu got three sentences. He looked at a recent edition of the Encyclopedia Americana. One sentence was devoted to the flu, and it said that the epidemic killed 21 million people. ‘Which was a gross understatement [since it killed roughly 51 million people]”(52). The fact that many people have such little knowledge on such an important event that has taken place in history is why Gina Kolata has written this book. Because of this, the idea of this being such an important event is highly stressed throughout the book.
Often times, I found that throughout the book, the writing didn’t keep me engaged. The information was very repetitive and I found that there also was a lot of unnecessary information. For example, whenever one of the chapter’s would delve into the life of the scientist that was being focused on in that chapter, there was information included that seemed very unnecessary. For example, “He was born in Stockholm and grew up in a wealthy home in the suburbs of the capital city…” Gina Kolata writes when describing Johan V. Hultin, a scientist who made a significant discovery with the Spanish flu virus. It then continues for several more pages as Kolata writes about Hilton's whole life leading up to his scientific work, which I believe was unnecessary and keeps readers distracted from the main idea of the book.
Even though Flu had some flaws, I found it a good book to read if your interested in learning more about the influenza virus. I would also recommend it to those who are interested in microorganisms and bio-medicine. This book is filled with interesting stories of the deadly influenza virus that took place in 1918, along with the decades long journey of finding the vaccine.
If this were a book that were at least $15, I wouldn’t say it was worth it. But, even though it may not have been what I was expecting when first purchasing this book at Goodwill, I would say that it was $1 well spent.
October 6, 2020
Very, very interesting!!! Would give it 4.5 stars if I could!
May 15, 2021
Well-researched and organized. Clearly written.
Reading a book on pandemics written over twenty years ago while living in a pandemic was a bit surreal.
Reading a book on pandemics written over twenty years ago while living in a pandemic was a bit surreal.
May 5, 2020
This book was excellent to read in the time of COVID-19. It's ironic to read how encouraged the author's tone was about scientific advances in virology. An example is in the very last sentences of the book: "Perhaps... a new plague is now gathering deadly force. Except this time we stand armed with a better understanding of the past to better survive the next pandemic." Reading this in April/May 2020 had me questioning, do we actually stand such armed?
The author is a journalist and at times, this book reads like a quite extended newspaper article, which I enjoyed. It had an accessible level of detail and was well-paced. It tells the tale of the 1918 flu pandemic and then describes in vignettes the history of viral pandemics and the subsequent quests to discover the causes and genetic makeup of the 1918 flu. It detours only to provide helpful examples of different concepts that the author introduces along the way, or to describe the backgrounds of key roleplaying scientists in the story of the 1918 virus.
As I mentioned in the beginning of my review, I am glad I read it during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, as the book served the dual purpose of a basis on which to make comparisons between the state of the world now and 102 years ago (when necessary) and an educational narrative about the history of a disease and the technology surrounding it. I would almost hope for an updated version to be published when this is all over, even if no further progress has been made since 1999 (which I doubt).
The author is a journalist and at times, this book reads like a quite extended newspaper article, which I enjoyed. It had an accessible level of detail and was well-paced. It tells the tale of the 1918 flu pandemic and then describes in vignettes the history of viral pandemics and the subsequent quests to discover the causes and genetic makeup of the 1918 flu. It detours only to provide helpful examples of different concepts that the author introduces along the way, or to describe the backgrounds of key roleplaying scientists in the story of the 1918 virus.
As I mentioned in the beginning of my review, I am glad I read it during the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, as the book served the dual purpose of a basis on which to make comparisons between the state of the world now and 102 years ago (when necessary) and an educational narrative about the history of a disease and the technology surrounding it. I would almost hope for an updated version to be published when this is all over, even if no further progress has been made since 1999 (which I doubt).
March 15, 2016
I enjoyed this study of the 1918 influenza pandemic, and how the search for the causative virus was continued through the generations of medical scientists to present day.
If you are not used to reading medical texts, there will appear to be a lot of deaths, autopsies, slivers of lung issue, viruses and transmissions. You may want to read it over a few sessions, as I did, not to get the full depressing force of the pandemic, and to allow yourself to adapt to the content. Once you're past the initial flu, and the contrast with the Black Death, the personalities of the scientists will carry you through the search.
In particular we get a contrast between the loner who took it upon himself to find preserved tissue which might still contain virus samples, in corpses in the permafrost of Alaska, and a bells and whistles, million dollar, all safety gear and massive media coverage, expedition to do the same off Scandinavia. The author doesn't laugh at either of them, but we readers get to laugh when we see the outcome. I also noted that in the early stages the scientists were all men, and by the later stages they were men and women.
I already knew that ducks in their millions live next to pigs in millions, in the Guangdong province of southwest China, food animals for the people; and any flu virus starting in ducks is transmitted to the pigs, mutating, from where it can easily jump to people. This book explains how this discovery was made, partly hinging on the fact that swine died in large numbers across America at the same time as the 1918 flu outbreak was killing people. Scientists did not then have electron microscopes, but they had identified that something they were calling a virus was small enough to pass through a sieve that strained out bacteria, and could be easily transmitted to ferrets. (Small complaint: ferrets are in one place described as rodents, when the little carnivores belong to Mustelidae.)
We're taken for a stroll through an Asian poultry market full of live birds ready to be bought and chopped on the spot. And we visit many laboratories to see how medical science picked up pace, until gene fragments could be isolated from old tissue and proteins marked with radioactive tags to show if they were transmitted to new sites. The medical and science establishment is seen as clannish and reluctant to admit work by newcomers to an area of study. But due to various orders given over the years, tiny scraps of bodies had been preserved in long-term storage, waiting for the day. If the 1918 flu, which killed far more people than the Great War, including 80% of some populations, returned, the modern population might have no remaining immunity. This was the driver behind vaccination programmes and the race to find the actual strain of the flu.
There are photos from 1918; 1951 of Johan Hultin in Alaska; 1976; 1997 as Johan Hultin re-enters the picture and Jeffrey Taubenberger and Ann Reid work in a Washington military lab.
I got some fascinating facts from this book, and I have a much better picture of the global efforts to identify new strains of flu and create vaccines each year.
If you are not used to reading medical texts, there will appear to be a lot of deaths, autopsies, slivers of lung issue, viruses and transmissions. You may want to read it over a few sessions, as I did, not to get the full depressing force of the pandemic, and to allow yourself to adapt to the content. Once you're past the initial flu, and the contrast with the Black Death, the personalities of the scientists will carry you through the search.
In particular we get a contrast between the loner who took it upon himself to find preserved tissue which might still contain virus samples, in corpses in the permafrost of Alaska, and a bells and whistles, million dollar, all safety gear and massive media coverage, expedition to do the same off Scandinavia. The author doesn't laugh at either of them, but we readers get to laugh when we see the outcome. I also noted that in the early stages the scientists were all men, and by the later stages they were men and women.
I already knew that ducks in their millions live next to pigs in millions, in the Guangdong province of southwest China, food animals for the people; and any flu virus starting in ducks is transmitted to the pigs, mutating, from where it can easily jump to people. This book explains how this discovery was made, partly hinging on the fact that swine died in large numbers across America at the same time as the 1918 flu outbreak was killing people. Scientists did not then have electron microscopes, but they had identified that something they were calling a virus was small enough to pass through a sieve that strained out bacteria, and could be easily transmitted to ferrets. (Small complaint: ferrets are in one place described as rodents, when the little carnivores belong to Mustelidae.)
We're taken for a stroll through an Asian poultry market full of live birds ready to be bought and chopped on the spot. And we visit many laboratories to see how medical science picked up pace, until gene fragments could be isolated from old tissue and proteins marked with radioactive tags to show if they were transmitted to new sites. The medical and science establishment is seen as clannish and reluctant to admit work by newcomers to an area of study. But due to various orders given over the years, tiny scraps of bodies had been preserved in long-term storage, waiting for the day. If the 1918 flu, which killed far more people than the Great War, including 80% of some populations, returned, the modern population might have no remaining immunity. This was the driver behind vaccination programmes and the race to find the actual strain of the flu.
There are photos from 1918; 1951 of Johan Hultin in Alaska; 1976; 1997 as Johan Hultin re-enters the picture and Jeffrey Taubenberger and Ann Reid work in a Washington military lab.
I got some fascinating facts from this book, and I have a much better picture of the global efforts to identify new strains of flu and create vaccines each year.
June 1, 2020
Fascinating! It got a little slow toward the end, but then all came together. This is not just about the 1918 flu epidemic. We are taken on a journey from then to now, stopping along the way to talk about other epidemics that I didn’t know about, but which helped scientists learn more about what may have happened in 1918. It was interesting to see how the government, doctors, and scientists reacted to new findings or threats of new outbreaks. We also got a look into how scientists are able to predict, with a certain level of accuracy, what types of illnesses we will see and how dangerous/rampant they will be. The author also touched on the dilemma (a few decades ago) of whether to push a vaccine out to the general public or keep it until they had more information about the disease they were seeing. Doctors and scientists had been working on it and then they started seeing cases. It wasn’t enough to justify a panic, but they also did not want to sit on a bunch of vaccines and risk it being too late to save lives if they waited too long. I am not doing justice at all the this struggle or the details in the book. It’s late. I’m tired. But I’m trying to make the point that I learned a lot which helped me see why things are being done the way they are right now, with the novel corona virus. This context explains all the “gotcha” questions nay sayers and conspiracy theorists bring up to try to prove this is planned or a political tool or whatever craziness they came up with today.
June 7, 2014
When the plague came, on those chilly days of autumn, some said it was a terrible new weapon of war.
In 1918, a pandemic hit the world and killed millions of people from China all the way out to the most remote outposts of the Alaskan wilderness. A world already reeling from the disastrous effects of the first World War had to deal with their young people dropping dead from a terrifying illness that cost more American lives than WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam combined. But what caused this terrible pandemic? Science is still searching for the virus that caused millions of deaths. In this book, Gina Kolata tells the story of the scientists searching for answers.
I picked this book up because after reading In the Shadow of Blackbirds and watching a Downton Abbey episode about the flu epidemic I was interested in the history of the pandemic and what life was like during the time period. Unfortunately only the first chapter is about 1918 and the rest is about the scientists who are trying to isolate the 1918 flu virus. Its not hugely disappointing, but I was wanting more about 1918 itself.
The book is pretty fascinating. I learned a great deal about the process of making vaccines and discovering viruses. There are a great deal of anecdotes that do connect near the end and were very well done. I liked that the book compared the epidemic and the search for the virus to other disease and epidemics.
I recommend this book to those who enjoy medical history and reading about diseases. It is a fascinating read if a bit dated (I would like to find an up-to-date book on the topic).
In 1918, a pandemic hit the world and killed millions of people from China all the way out to the most remote outposts of the Alaskan wilderness. A world already reeling from the disastrous effects of the first World War had to deal with their young people dropping dead from a terrifying illness that cost more American lives than WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam combined. But what caused this terrible pandemic? Science is still searching for the virus that caused millions of deaths. In this book, Gina Kolata tells the story of the scientists searching for answers.
I picked this book up because after reading In the Shadow of Blackbirds and watching a Downton Abbey episode about the flu epidemic I was interested in the history of the pandemic and what life was like during the time period. Unfortunately only the first chapter is about 1918 and the rest is about the scientists who are trying to isolate the 1918 flu virus. Its not hugely disappointing, but I was wanting more about 1918 itself.
The book is pretty fascinating. I learned a great deal about the process of making vaccines and discovering viruses. There are a great deal of anecdotes that do connect near the end and were very well done. I liked that the book compared the epidemic and the search for the virus to other disease and epidemics.
I recommend this book to those who enjoy medical history and reading about diseases. It is a fascinating read if a bit dated (I would like to find an up-to-date book on the topic).
July 31, 2025
This should be required for college microbiology students ... and probably for all college students and most high school students. It's a timely read; today's pandemic smoothly follows the conclusion of this book. Everyone who scoffs the 'stay at home' orders should be required to read this, which should help them understand the reasoning behind the decisions. (True. It was written over 20 years ago, but it's still relevant today.)
p 22: At Camp Sherman in Ohio, 13,161 men — about 40% of those at the camp—got the flu between Sept 27 and Oct 13, 1918. Of them, 1,101 died.
p 23: In Tucson, Arizona, the board of health issued a ruling that "no person shall appear in any street, park, or place where any business is transacted, or in any other public place within the city of Tucson, without wearing a mask consisting of at least 4 thicknesses of butter cloth or at least 7 thicknesses of ordinary gauze, covering both the nose and the mouth."
Re 1976 flu outbreak, p 136 ... 138: There was no time to waste if vaccine manufacturers were going to prepare for a swine flue immunization campaign. ... "Better a vaccine without an epidemic than an epidemic without a vaccine," Kilbourne said.
Re liability, p 161: It simply was not worth taking a chance, the companies reasoned. No matter if they warned of any and all known dangers of the vaccine. No matter if they could easily explain the the scientific community the illnesses and deaths that were bound to occur be coincidence when more than 100 million people were vaccinated. The fact remained that the companies could be sued, and they could lose big. Even if they won, they could be saddled with immense costs of defending themselves against a barrage of lawsuits.
p 22: At Camp Sherman in Ohio, 13,161 men — about 40% of those at the camp—got the flu between Sept 27 and Oct 13, 1918. Of them, 1,101 died.
p 23: In Tucson, Arizona, the board of health issued a ruling that "no person shall appear in any street, park, or place where any business is transacted, or in any other public place within the city of Tucson, without wearing a mask consisting of at least 4 thicknesses of butter cloth or at least 7 thicknesses of ordinary gauze, covering both the nose and the mouth."
Re 1976 flu outbreak, p 136 ... 138: There was no time to waste if vaccine manufacturers were going to prepare for a swine flue immunization campaign. ... "Better a vaccine without an epidemic than an epidemic without a vaccine," Kilbourne said.
Re liability, p 161: It simply was not worth taking a chance, the companies reasoned. No matter if they warned of any and all known dangers of the vaccine. No matter if they could easily explain the the scientific community the illnesses and deaths that were bound to occur be coincidence when more than 100 million people were vaccinated. The fact remained that the companies could be sued, and they could lose big. Even if they won, they could be saddled with immense costs of defending themselves against a barrage of lawsuits.
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