NewMexiKen began reading John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza yesterday on the plane from Baltimore to Albuquerque. The book describes the 1918 influenza outbreak worldwide — the deadliest plague in history. 170 pages in and it’s been mostly background — not uninteresting, but a little tedious and repetitious. I’ll sum up and make a recommendation regarding the book when I’m done.
In the meanwhile, some interesting tidbits:
It was called the Spanish flu because Spain wasn’t fighting in World War I and therefore its press remained free to print what was going on. Elsewhere, including particularly the U.S., the press was censored and did not report the epidemic at first.
The influenza began, more than likely, in Haskell, Kansas (west of Dodge City), in March 1918. It spread rapidly because of crowded wartime military camps and troop movements. It was worldwide by fall.
Pandemic is the term for a worldwide epidemic. An epidemic is local or national.
Influenza (a virus) mutates rapidly, even within a host cell. In humans influenza is exclusively a respiratory disease, though it may indirectly affect many parts of the body (headaches, sore muscles). The stomach “flu” we get is not influenza.
And, as you all know, antibiotics have no effect whatsover on viruses. They work exclusively on bacteria.
I can’t help but wonder (a little at least) how the concept of rapidly mutating flu viruses causing epidemics and pandemics which have on ocassion killed more than a million people, without regard for religion, is incorporated into the dogma of inteligent design.
The 1918 pandemic killed as many as 100 million in 24 weeks. Sinners every one.