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You are here > Home > Reading Lists > Recommended Gifts > The Great Influenza The Great Influenza: The Epic
Story of the Deadliest Plague in History Library Binding: 546 pages Softcover: 546 pages This historical book reads like a novel, making a wonderful gift for anyone interested in medical history. "Barry makes it all too easy to imagine a similarly devastating epidemic with a similarly inadequate response. I highly recommend this book to all." - Karen Brudney, M.D., New England Journal of Medicine In his powerful new book, award-winning historian John M. Barry unfolds a tale that is magisterial in its breadth and in the depth of its research, and spellbinding as he weaves multiple narrative strands together. No disease the world has ever known even remotely resembles the great influenza epidemic of 1918. Presumed to have begun when sick farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas, spreading and mutating into a lethal strain as troops carried it to Europe, it exploded across the world with unequaled ferocity and speed. It killed more people in twenty weeks than AIDS has killed in twenty years; it killed more people in a year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. Victims bled from the ears and nose, turned blue from lack of oxygen, suffered aches that felt like bones being broken, and died. In the United States, where bodies were stacked without coffins on trucks, nearly seven times as many people died of influenza as in the First World War. In this first great collision between science and epidemic disease, even as society approached collapse, a handful of heroic researchers stepped forward, risking their lives to confront this strange disease. Titans like William Welch at the newly formed Johns Hopkins Medical School and colleagues at Rockefeller University and others from around the country revolutionized American science and public health, and their work in this crisis led to crucial discoveries that we are still using and learning from today. The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley said Barry’s last book can "change the way we think." The Great Influenza may also change the way we see the world. "In 1918, a plague swept across the world virtually without warning, killing healthy young adults as well as vulnerable infants and the elderly. Hospitals and morgues were quickly overwhelmed; in Philadelphia, 4,597 people died in one week alone and bodies piled up on the streets to be carted off to mass graves. But this was not the dreaded Black Death-it was 'only influenza.' In this sweeping history, Barry (Rising Tide) explores how the deadly confluence of biology (a swiftly mutating flu virus that can pass between animals and humans) and politics (President Wilson's all-out war effort in WWI) created conditions in which the virus thrived, killing more than 50 million worldwide and perhaps as many as 100 million in just a year. Overcrowded military camps and wide-ranging troop deployments allowed the highly contagious flu to spread quickly; transport ships became 'floating caskets.' Yet the U.S. government refused to shift priorities away from the war and, in effect, ignored the crisis. Shortages of doctors and nurses hurt military and civilian populations alike, and the ineptitude of public health officials exacerbated the death toll. In Philadelphia, the hardest-hit municipality in the U.S., 'the entire city government had done nothing' to either contain the disease or assist afflicted families. Instead, official lies and misinformation, Barry argues, created a climate of 'fear... [that] threatened to break the society apart.' Barry captures the sense of panic and despair that overwhelmed stricken communities and hits hard at those who failed to use their power to protect the public good. He also describes the work of the dedicated researchers who rushed to find the cause of the disease and create vaccines. Flu shots are widely available today because of their heroic efforts, yet we remain vulnerable to a virus that can mutate to a deadly strain without warning. Society's ability to survive another devastating flu pandemic, Barry argues, is as much a political question as a medical one." - Publishers Weekly You may also be interested in more: Gift Ideas for Professionals, Nurses & PhysiciansJump to a List / Health Administration & Leadership / Physician Executive, Medical Staff & Practice Management / Finance, Accounting, Economics, Billing & Reimbursement / Coding for Hospital, Physician & Clinical Services / Law, Malpractice, Ethics, Accreditation & Compliance / Quality Improvement, Outcomes & Customer Service / Risk Management, Security, Error Reduction & Patient Safety / Information Systems, Technology & Medical Records / Clinical Management & Executive Nursing / Behavioral Health, Social Work & Psychiatry Management / Human Resources, Management & Supervision / Directories, Data, Trends & Benchmarks / Software & CD-ROMs / Gift Ideas & Recommended Gifts / Journals, Magazines & Newsletters / Search for Books / Books Index / Go Back to Pages / Home Page / Toolbox for Health Administrators / Bookstore |
