The Great Influenzas’ Unique Spread, Essay Example

The great influenza epidemic in 1918 was a disastrous disease that was believed to have originated in farm animals in Kansas, mutate into a lethal strain and infect troops. The troops carried it to Europe and it spread diligently across the world killing thousands of people in less than twenty weeks. The influenza affected people so gravely, individuals bled from the ears and nose, turned blue and suffered aches that felt like broken bones, and then died shortly thereafter. John M. Barry is accredited with writing the award winning book, “The Great Influenza”, that describes this harsh times as well as the science behind the disease, and about the researchers that risked their lives to investigate the disease and find a cure. The interesting fact about this epidemic was that it was not the plague; it was just the influenza virus. What about this particular virus was so deadly to cause over 100 million people? This was more than the number of people killed in the World War I. Barry describes how it was the combination of the fast mutating virus that was able to pass from animals to humans and the politics at the time.

The influenza outbreak in 1918 was considered unique because it’s ability to mutate into a lethal form and transfer from an animal into a human. In addition, the conditions that were present during the time of this outbreak facilitated its spread. During this time, World War 1 was occurring and all training soldiers were crowded into training facilities that were not in top sanitary conditions. As mentioned previously, the first flu outbreak arose in Kansas at one of the training facilities, from which it mutated from farm animals. Once it entered the first training camp, it very quickly jumped from training camp to training camp. In addition, the soldiers were being sent overseas and they brought the virus with them, which began to spread in Europe. Therefore, not only was it spreading in the United States, it was spreading from city to city in Europe and other continents as well. In less than a year over 100 million people worldwide were dead from this virus, an unfathomable piece of history.

Barry describes in his book how the politicians were not doing anything to help the spread of this virus. In fact he mentions that the U.S. government refused to take attention away from the war for a virus. The city that was hit the most in the U.S. was Philadelphia. Thousands were dying and without the help of the city officials. The city officials were just placing the bodies in the streets in order to be transferred to mass graves. The medical help was also short because they were being hit with the disease as well. Barry states, “fear threatened to break the society apart”. (234) How was this disease that was spreading so quickly contained? Barry describes how courageous researchers risked their lives in order to find what was causing the disease and create a vaccine that could prevent future outbreaks.

In his book, Barry states, “To be a scientist requires not only intelligence and curiosity, but passion, patience, creativity, self-sufficiency, and courage. It is not the courage to venture into the unknown. It is the courage to accept-indeed, embrace-uncertainty”. (235) That is exactly what a researcher from Bloomberg School did. He courageously performed autopsies of some of the victims. What he found astonished the entire medical field. He found a new disease that was unlike most variations of the flu virus. He also noticed that this virus was spreading through only the 20-40 year old age group, while passing over the young and the elderly. This is particularly uncommon for flu viruses, since they normally affect young children and elderly. The virus eventually faded off because most of the people that were affected by the virus were dead. The hard work from the researchers, however, paved the way for the current vaccinations that we have today for the flu. John Barry, however, does indicate that scientists do suggest that there is the possibility for another outbreak of influenza with changing mutations that could cause another epidemic.

Works Cited

Barry, J. The Great Influenza. Revised edition. 2005. Penguin Books. 546 pgs.