Hunting the 1918 Flu

Hunting the 1918 Flu
Author: Kirsty E. Duncan
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2006-08-19
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1442692103

In 1918 the Spanish flu epidemic swept the world and killed an estimated 20 to 40 million people in just one year, more than the number that died during the four years of the First World War. To this day medical science has been at a loss to explain the Spanish flu's origin. Most virologists are convinced that sooner or later a similarly deadly flu virus will return with a vengeance; thus anything we can learn from the 1918 flu may save lives in a new epidemic. Responding to sustained interest in this medical mystery, Hunting the 1918 Flu presents a detailed account of Kirsty Duncan's experiences as she organized an international, multi-discipline scientific expedition to exhume the bodies of a group of Norwegian miners buried in Svalbard, all victims of the flu virus. Constant throughout is her determination to honour the Norwegian laws and the Svalbard customs that treat the dead and the living with respect - especially when a live virus, if unearthed, could kill millions. Another theme of the book is the author's growing love for Svalbard and its people. Duncan's narrative describes a large-scale medical project to uncover genetic material from the Spanish flu; it also reveals the turbulent politics of a group moving towards a goal where the egos were as strong as the stakes were high. The author, herself a medical geographer, is very frank about her bruising emotional, financial, and professional experiences on the 'dark side of science.' Duncan raises questions not only about public health, epidemiology, the ethics of science, and the rights of subjects, but also about the role of age, gender, and privilege in science. While her search for the virus has shown promising results, it has also revealed the dangers of science itself being subsumed in the rush for personal acclaim.

Flu Hunter

Flu Hunter
Author: Robert G. Webster
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
Genre: Avian influenza
ISBN: 9781988531311

When a new influenza virus emerges that is able to be transmitted between humans, it spreads globally as a pandemic, often with high mortality. Enormous social disruption and substantial economic cost can result. The 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic was undoubtedly the most devastating influenza pandemic to date, and it has been Dr Robert Websters lifes work to figure out how and why. In so doing he has made a remarkable contribution to our understanding of the evolution of influenza viruses and how to control them. A century on, Flu Hunter is a gripping account of the tenacious scientific detective work involved in revealing the secrets of this killer virus. Dubbed Flu Hunter by Smithsonian Magazine in 2006, Dr Webster began his research in the early 1960s with the insight that the natural ecology of most influenza viruses is among wild aquatic birds. Painstaking tracking and testing of thousands of birds eventually led him and the other scientists involved to establish a link between these bird virus reservoirs and human influenza pandemics. Some of this fascinating scientific work involved exhuming bodies of Spanish flu victims from the Arctic permafrost in a search for tissue samples containing genetic material from the virus. Could a global influenza pandemic occur again? Websters warning is clear: "... it is not only possible, it is just a matter of when."

The Great Influenza

The Great Influenza
Author: John M. Barry
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2005-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780143036494

#1 New York Times bestseller “Barry will teach you almost everything you need to know about one of the deadliest outbreaks in human history.”—Bill Gates "Monumental... an authoritative and disturbing morality tale."—Chicago Tribune The strongest weapon against pandemic is the truth. Read why in the definitive account of the 1918 Flu Epidemic. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research, The Great Influenza provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. As Barry concludes, "The final lesson of 1918, a simple one yet one most difficult to execute, is that...those in authority must retain the public's trust. The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one. Lincoln said that first, and best. A leader must make whatever horror exists concrete. Only then will people be able to break it apart." At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Very, Very, Very Dreadful

Very, Very, Very Dreadful
Author: Albert Marrin
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2018-01-09
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1101931485

From National Book Award finalist Albert Marrin comes a fascinating look at the history and science of the deadly 1918 flu pandemic--and its chilling and timely resemblance to the worldwide coronavirus outbreak. In spring of 1918, World War I was underway, and troops at Fort Riley, Kansas, found themselves felled by influenza. By the summer of 1918, the second wave struck as a highly contagious and lethal epidemic and within weeks exploded into a pandemic, an illness that travels rapidly from one continent to another. It would impact the course of the war, and kill many millions more soldiers than warfare itself. Of all diseases, the 1918 flu was by far the worst that has ever afflicted humankind; not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages comes close in terms of the number of lives it took. No war, no natural disaster, no famine has claimed so many. In the space of eighteen months in 1918-1919, about 500 million people--one-third of the global population at the time--came down with influenza. The exact total of lives lost will never be known, but the best estimate is between 50 and 100 million. In this powerful book, filled with black and white photographs, nonfiction master Albert Marrin examines the history, science, and impact of this great scourge--and the possibility for another worldwide pandemic today. A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year!

Flu

Flu
Author: Gina Kolata
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2011-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1429979356

Veteran journalist Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It presents a fascinating look at 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.

Bovril,Whisky and Gravediggers

Bovril,Whisky and Gravediggers
Author: Maggie Andrews
Publisher:
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2019-09
Genre:
ISBN: 9781905036646

Spanish Flu' killed more than 50million people and afffected millions more across the globe between 1918 and 1920. Soldiers, POWs and workers in war-industries all fell victim to this pandemic which brought fear and death to villages, towns and cities on the homefront, even after the guns of the First World War battlefields had fallen silent.

Epidemic Encounters

Epidemic Encounters
Author: Magda Fahrni
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012-05-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0774822155

Health crises such as the SARS epidemic and H1N1 have rekindled interest among historians, medical authorities, and government officials in the 1918 influenza pandemic, a crisis that swept the globe in the wake of the First World War and killed approximately 50 million people. Epidemic Encounters zeroes in on Canada, where one-third of the population took ill and fifty-five thousand people died, to consider the various ways in which this country was affected by the pandemic. How did military and medical authorities, health care workers, and ordinary citizens respond? What role did social inequalities play in determining who survived? To answer these questions as they pertained to both local and national contexts, the contributors explore a number of key themes and topics, including the experiences of nurses and Aboriginal peoples, public letter writing in Montreal, the place of the epidemic within industrial modernity, and the relationship between mourning and interwar spiritualism. In the process, they offer new insights into medical history’s usefulness in the struggle against epidemic disease.

We All Expected to Die

We All Expected to Die
Author: Anne Budgell
Publisher:
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2018
Genre: Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919
ISBN: 9781894725545

A harrowing account of loss and survival during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and its devastating impact on Labrador.