The Great Influenza

The Great Influenza
by John M. Barry

4,5 Stars

It killed more people in 6 months than the Black Death killed in a century. People who were young and strong were the most likely to die. In the US, 650,000 people died. The average life expectancy in the US went down by 10 years. Worldwide, perhaps 100 million people died. And yet, it was only the flu. Even today, 90 years after the epidemic, it kills 36,000 Americans in a typical year and we are hardly more prepared to face another epidemic.

John M. Barry has written a fascinating account of the influenza epidemic of 1918. But the book is a lot more than just a review of the flu. Barry starts out by examining the state of the American health system at the time of the epidemic and how it reached that state. He explores the revolutionary changes to medicine that occurred in the late 19th and early 20th century and the people who led those changes. He shows us why, even today, a cure for influenza is beyond our reach, explaining in layman’s terms how the influenza virus changes to become deadly and changes again to lose that deadliness. He explains how an endemic virus can lead to an epidemic of unimagined proportions.

Barry also shows how the demands of World War I on troop movements, the propaganda campaigns to keep morale high, and the failure of leaders to listen to the doctors and researchers led to a killing field of historic size. His account tends to concentrate on Philadelphia because the city was hit extremely hard and much of the research going on was near that city but he does cover other areas around the world hit hard by the virus, although his coverage of the flu outside of the US is sketchy at best. He gives us writings from diaries and newspaper articles to show what was actually happening and how the media tried to downplay the epidemic. He gives us detailed accounts of the research (and the researchers) that was done to fight the epidemic, explains why this research was mostly unsuccessful, and does it all in a way that is easy to understand even if you don’t have a medical degree.

Barry likes to use foreshadowing, hints of what is to come, to keep the reader’s interest and it does work, even if it is a bit melodramatic. Even the chapter titles, “The Tinderbox”, “It Begins”, The Race”, provide some melodrama to the story. The book mostly moves at a good pace and I found myself having trouble putting it down. Barry has written a book that everyone should read, whether you are familiar with the epidemic or not. It is a fascinating, terrifying, detailed, and extremely important book.