Ahh-choo!

The Great Influenza:
The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History
by John M. Barry


How many kids learned in school that the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the first World War?  Or that our government censored the news about the disease's spread because it might hurt the war effort?  Do they know that it became common to wear masks in public?  That the new strain of flu probably originated in Kansas and spread around the world because of our government's failure to recognize it and prevent it, in a nation whipped to frenzy to fight the good fight?

This book tells the whole story and not just the dry facts I recited.  It's a human story and a war story, human against microbe, told the way it went down.  By the way, mankind didn't win this war. He simply developed resistance--after about 3 to 6% of the world population died.  The virus's odd tendency to rearrange its genes, constantly morphing its appearance, worked like a charm--at first. The human immune system can deal with most intruders quite effectively--once it recognizes them. Influenza has a way of rearranging its appearance and sneaking past the immune system--once the system "catches on", it may be too late.  Interesting still, modern research on bodies preserved at the time of the epidemic, shows that the virus killed primarily due to an overreaction of the body's immune system.  It killed young, healthy people with strong immune systems.

Great book.  I won't recommend that all schoolkids read it, but the chapters about the flu virus itself would be a good introduction for kids interested in medicine. For all people I would recommend the section about the end of the war--to remind us of how the poor leadership of Wilson and the petty greed of other countries led directly to the rise of Nazi Germany.  I think we've learned a few lessons since then.  Some of us.