First Post: Pandemic Influenza

Hmmm... what should I say?

Nothing profound today, but I am composing an article on pandemic influenza for a state medical society journal. This is quite interesting; although I have started out with some knowledge of influenza from prior study, the history of such things as the great 1918 pandemic are not readily known.

I suggest reading the book "The Great Influenza" by John M Barry. This book does an excellent job of setting the 1918 pandemic (AKA "Spanish Influenza") into an historical context.

For start, it becomes readily apparent that American medicine, at the turn of the century, was mostly non-scientific and primarily still relied on all the false presumptions left over from Hippocratic medicine. So, in this, the great pandemic of 1918 is most interesting because this occurred at a time when the medical community was just beginning to come to grips with crucial concepts such as Germ Theory, yet the essential details of molecular genetics or even the recognition of viruses was still lacking.

The historical context is further interesting given the relationship to World War I. This is even more relative when considering the current political climate. I don't think many people realize that during World War I (a war which Woodrow Wilson tried very hard to avoid entering) the United States was entirely controlled by the government. In the spirit of "total war", the government did all but outright censor the press and public. It becomes apparent that this was detrimental in the event of pandemic influenza, but overall it would seem that history as tolerated and accepted that course in our history. It is somewhat interesting to make comparisons to the current day popular mentality and governmental climate.

Nevertheless, imagine what it would be like to have approximately 50% of the entire US population sick with a disease where most of those are too ill to work and then about 10% die... and to have all of that occur over the period of just a few months. And it would appear that the mortality from "bird flu" (mostly attributed to H5N1 virus) is even more virulent than this.

Well, more to say about this some other time.