The 1918 Pandemic Analysis

The book “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, written by John M. Barry, covers the progression of the Spanish influenza, especially in the United States. Barry focuses not only on the influenza itself, though, but also on the social influences that allowed the virus to flourish. The book covers how medical practices in the United States had risen up just in time to combat the virus, but, due to societal issues and the war, the doctors struggled in areas where they should have been successful.

The first wave of the 1918 pandemic appeared in San Sebastián, Spain. Within two months, 8 million of Spain’s residents were ill, and the disease had spread on a global scale. Soon it became known as the Spanish flu, because it received the most press there. The other nations had their media tied up with wartime censorship; Spain, a noncombatant, had no such measures in place (Kolata, Flu 9-10). The first wave of the 1918 pandemic appeared in America without much comment. The media was more interested in attention-grabbing news about topics like the war than the rather unremarkable flu. Most people were afflicted with symptoms for a few days before recovering and moving on. The only aspect of the flu that was remarkable was the condition of the lungs from the victims who had died from the flu and pneumonia (Crosby 17-21).

In his nonfiction text, The Great Influenza, John M. Barry explains that scientific research is an uncertain process. Barry supports this explanation by using rhetorical strategies such as repetition and a metaphor. Barry’s purpose is to prove scientific research is a confident process that allows one to be courageous on the side of uncertainty. Barry uses formal tone with his audience that goes beyond researchers.

In a passage from The Great Influenza, an account of the 1918 flu epidemic, John M. Barry claims that scientists must not only accept uncertainty, but they must also embrace it. He begins by explaining how uncertainty produces weaknesses, and he emphasizes that even with great uncertainty, a scientist must courageously move forward. Barry then includes analogies to present the challenges that arise from advancing into the unknown and how the embrace of the unknown itself serves as the only way that will lead scientists to success.Through his use of analogies, his employment of irony, and his appeal to logos, he effectively convinces the readers that although uncertainty might seem like an obstacle, it is a tool that will allow scientists to prosper.

As the horrendous experiences of the First World War began to wind down, a new terror emerged in the form of the Spanish Influenza that circumnavigated the world, not once but twice within a two-year period. While the general public commonly remembered experiences of the war in literature, art, prose and memorials, those of the 1918 pandemic were not. Research completed by this author on the subject of German bias during the First World War found little mention of the influenza pandemic in The Burlington Hawk-Eye, the state?s longest continually operating newspaper, published in Burlington, Iowa. However, the Burlington Public Library Board, in its meeting minutes, recommended the

The Spanish flu in World War I was a lot worse and had a way higher death rate than the common flu today. Therefore, they should not even be compared. It is so much different because during war everything was so dirty and everyone was always crammed in the trenches: “World War 1 trenches were dirty, smelly and riddled with disease. For soldiers life in the trenches meant living in fear” (WWI facts). This made it very easy to catch illnesses especially because the flu was so contagious. The symptoms of the Spanish flu were very similar to the symptoms of a common flu: “Normal flu symptoms of fever, nausea, aches and diarrhea” (NPR). Although they were similar is was still way more deadly to have it during World War I. Everyone already had such

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

     There have been about 20 million reported deaths due to the influenza of 1918. The doctors were too overwhelmed by the many cases they had to care for, which brought about many unreported cases, causing this minuscule number. One fateful day in October 759 people died in Philadelphia (Kolata 19-20). The epidemic spread so far so fast that public officials became frantic looking for ways to fend off the virus. Arrests were made for spitting and coughing, public meetings were prohibited, and a series of medical procedures were all attempts to prevent the virus from entering victims’ lungs (Persico 83).

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

In August of last year, an adult in Pueblo County, Colorado succumbed to the bubonic plague. The Health Department did not specify who it was, just saying that it was an adult. This was the first case of someone contracting the plague in Pueblo County since 2004. It is thought that the person caught the disease from fleas on a dead animal. According to the CDC, about seven people every year contract the plague in the United States.

pandemics: the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu and the terror and

“It killed more people in twenty-four weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. – John Barry

Influenza was one of the very common disease seen in war. it was the pandemic 1918- 1919, this year was put down as one of the global disasters. Influenza is a very contagious viral infection respiratory passages causing fever, the effects of this disease are a cough ,sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headaches, always very

The American Plague, Molly Caldwell Crosby’s nonfiction novel, accounts the journey of yellow fever from an African virus to the remarkably deadly epidemic that shaped American history in an often overlooked way. Crosby’s novel aims to give insight to the historical impact of yellow fever in the Americas, especially the United States. The novel guides through the history of the titular “American Plague”, yellow fever, in three main parts: its height epidemic in the United States, specifically in Memphis, the Commission to find the cause and vaccine for it, in Cuba, and the effects and presence the epidemic has in the present.

In the spring of 1918, the first wave of one of the deadliest influenza pandemics began plaguing its victims (Peters, ix). Over the span of three lethal waves, the pandemic claimed approximately forty million victims, eradicating nearly twenty percent of the entire world’s population, or about one out of five individuals (Peters, ix). To make matters more dire, the ill-suited medical community was exceptionally unprepared for such a wide-scale pandemic: Doctors had very basic tools, knew little about diseases, and had no experience with vaccinations or prevention (Peters, 1-5; “The 1920s: Medicine and Health: Overview”, n.p.). People blindly faced the epidemic, relying on folk remedies such as consuming wine, drinking antiseptic, and