Title The great influenza : the epic story of the deadliest plague in history / John M. Barry

Published New York : Viking, ©2004

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Description 1 online resource (546 pages) : illustrations Contents The warriors -- The swarm -- The tinderbox -- It begins -- Explosion -- The pestilence -- The race -- The tolling of the bell -- Lingerer -- Endgame Summary "In the winter of 1918, the coldest the American Midwest had ever endured, history's most lethal influenza virus was born. Over the next year it flourished, killing as many as 100 million people. It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years, more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century. There were many echoes of the Middle Ages in 1918: victims turned blue-black and priests in some of the world's most modern cities drove horse-drawn carts down the streets, calling upon people to bring out their dead." "But 1918 was not the Middle Ages, and the story of this epidemic is not simply one of death, suffering, and terror; it is the story of one war imposed upon the background of another. For the first time in history, science collided with epidemic disease, and great scientists - pioneers who defined modern American medicine - pitted themselves against a pestilence. The politicians and military commanders of World War I, focusing upon a different type of enemy, ignored warnings from these scientists and so fostered conditions that helped the virus kill. The strain of these two wars put society itself under almost unimaginable pressure. Even as scientists began to make progress, the larger society around them began to crack." "Yet ultimately this is a story of triumph amidst tragedy, illuminating human courage as well as science. In particular, this courage led a tenacious investigator directly to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the twentieth century - a discovery that has spawned many Nobel prizes and even now is shaping our future."--Jacket Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 507-527) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Print version record Subject Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919. Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919 -- United States Medicine -- United States -- History -- 20th century Influenza -- History -- 20th century Influenza, Human -- history Disease Outbreaks -- history History, 20th Century Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919 MEDICAL -- Preventive Medicine. MEDICAL -- Forensic Medicine. MEDICAL -- Public Health. Influenza Medicine Grippe Influenza. Epidemieën. Influensa -- historia -- 1900-talet. Geschichte 1918. Influenza -- History. SUBJECT United States Subject United States USA Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780786586516 0786586516

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