Flu : The story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it

by Gina Kolata

Hardcover, 1999

Status

Available

Collection

Publication

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.

Description

Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML: Veteran journalist Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It presents a fascinating look at true story of the world's deadliest disease. In 1918, the Great Flu Epidemic felled the young and healthy virtually overnight. An estimated forty million people died as the epidemic raged. Children were left orphaned and families were devastated. As many American soldiers were killed by the 1918 flu as were killed in battle during World War I. And no area of the globe was safe. Eskimos living in remote outposts in the frozen tundra were sickened and killed by the flu in such numbers that entire villages were wiped out. Scientists have recently rediscovered shards of the flu virus frozen in Alaska and preserved in scraps of tissue in a government warehouse. Gina Kolata, an acclaimed reporter for The New York Times, unravels the mystery of this lethal virus with the high drama of a great adventure story. Delving into the history of the flu and previous epidemics, detailing the science and the latest understanding of this mortal disease, Kolata addresses the prospects for a great epidemic recurring, and, most important, what can be done to prevent it..… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member gregory_gwen
my biggest issue was that it was written in 1999 so it didn't cover the last few years of scientific work. I guess I need to read a newer book on this topic!
LibraryThing member bsquaredinoz
In case the long title doesn’t make it clear this book is about the scientists of various generations and disciplines who, in combination, have searched for, and found, the virus that caused the world’s last great flu pandemic. The book starts off with a short description of the worst impacts
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of the flu (in America) and gives a potted history of major disease outbreaks through history before stepping through the many decades of steps that were taken by a variety of scientists to understand what cased that pandemic. Perhaps the most well known of these steps was the extraction of the virus from the preserved bodies of people who had died in the pandemic and whose bodies had been accidentally preserved in the permafrost of Alaska.

Writing entertainingly about science is not, I assume, a walk in the park and Kolata (a Science journalist) does a good job of balancing the need to create an engaging, understandable narrative for non scientists with the need not to treat readers like simpletons (which happens all too often these days). There’s clearly a load of research in the book and while her conclusions are not always in line with other reading I’ve done on the subject of the pandemic itself they’re solidly backed up. And what is science if not the posing of theories and questioning of them? I’d have liked to see more reliance on primary sources and archival material rather than the delayed first-hand accounts and newspaper reports Kolata uses but all in all it’s a good read with more excitement and drama than some fiction I’ve read.
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LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
THis is a fine work of history and forensics. Kolata's journalistic style results in a compelling account of 1918 flu as well as the current attempts to isolate that virus.
LibraryThing member FKarr
less detailed than Great Epidemic, but broader in outlook; more focus on contemporary scientists and their knowledge of influenza
LibraryThing member JenLamoureux
Parts of this book are really good. It's very informative, and following the emergence of modern day protocols for influenza was fascinating. Kolata's book seems very well researched to me. The parts I didn't enjoy were centered around Duncan's expedition. I just feel like the author goes out of
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her way to make Duncan sound like a fame-whoring ridicaloo. Maybe she was, but I think that section could have trimmed down a bit without losing that message. Still, the rest of the book and the stories within it were enough to still make this a very good read, as far as I'm concerned. I may have to pick up Clone sometime as well.
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LibraryThing member ElizabethPisani
Kolata weaves history, global politics and forensic epidemiology together into a gripping and informative narrative. Unlike many single-topic books, it does not secretly wish it were a New Yorker article. There is enough information and drama easily to sustain a reader for several hundred pages.
LibraryThing member sgerbic
Reviewed Dec 2003 ~ purchased for $1 from the book fair

An interesting history of the flu and other epidemics. It almost reads like a mystery but actually is a historical look at the flu. This is especially interesting to read because I have the flu right now, and the news this week is flooded with
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discussions of deaths from the flu. What surprised me the most is how many people die each year (30-50K). the 1918 flu killed 40 million world wide, almost impossible to imagine. The other think that surprised me is to realize that the flu deals with the lungs and not nausea (that would be the stomach flu). I never knew that fever, chill, coughing and headaches are flu not cold symptoms. At points the book is technical (over my head) and sometimes confusing jumping back and forth between various people in time and place. Very well documented Kolata uses full names/dates/places to back up everything she says. This book would be useful for school projects as well as those interested in history. My grievance lies in that there is so much info that a 2nd or 3rd read is needed. Also I am still not sure if scientists have come to a conclusion about the 1918 virus.

10-2003
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LibraryThing member sharonk21
This is the most readable of all the recent flu books.
LibraryThing member LTFL_JMLS
my biggest issue was that it was written in 1999 so it didn't cover the last few years of scientific work. I guess I need to read a newer book on this topic!
LibraryThing member cfk
Normally, I wouldn't dream of reading about epidemics of any sort, but since I needed something for the March RTT theme.... The 1918 Influenza actually killed far more people than either of the World Wars combined, and then some. And, unlike most outbreaks, if attacked and killed healthy young
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adults.

Kolata's research and documentation are excellent and her writing style is easy reading, if you don't mind the bloody subject--which it was. She also reviewed other strains of influenza and the attempts to define source and type.
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LibraryThing member caleath
Very well written...it jumped around a bit too much for me other wise would have been a 4.
LibraryThing member tloeffler
A fascinating account of the development of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Although there are some personal stories about the effects of the flu, the bulk of the book covers the scientific community's attempts to isolate the virus and make sure it doesn't happen again. Even though it wasn't what I
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expected, I found it very interesting, and hard to put down.
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LibraryThing member dypaloh
Consider this: During the great influenza pandemic of 1918 the average life span of the U.S. population fell by twelve years. Twelve! Gina Kolata writes that “Undertakers in Philadelphia were overwhelmed and some were…hiking prices as much as 600%.”

Desperate, and with no animal model
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available to use in studying the disease, authorities offered pardons to convicted naval prisoners who would agree to be infected by what scientists hoped were fluids or air with the contagion. Sixty-two convicts agreed to be lab rats. Prison must have been an especially dire place ca. 1918.

You might think a book about such terrible epidemics, and the pursuit of defenses against them, would have no amusing moments. Not so. As an example, in 1940, Johan Hultin, while on leave from the University of Uppsala in Sweden where he studied medicine, came to the U.S. to work at the University of Iowa. First he visited New York and when a friend there showed him a sign that said ‘coin laundry,’ recalled “I never asked what it was—I knew it. Americans are so worried about germs that they have their coins cleaned.”

If only there were such places. Think of all those bright, shining pennies.

Gina Kolata has written an informative account covering disease origin, manifestation, spread, treatment, mortality, and prevention. One might expect the approaches we use to address these issues would tap primarily our rationality and intelligence. But as she relates, they are matters that have become much politicized. With what consequences remains to be seen.
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LibraryThing member hailelib
This history of the 1918 flu pandemic and the search for the virus that caused it is very readable and fairly wide-ranging. Gina Kolata is a science journalist who studied microbiology and history in college but, like many of us, she never grasped the fact of its seriousness until she read a paper
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in Science in 1997 about an attempt to establish the virus's genetic code in order to write an article about this attempt for the New York Times. Two years of research and interviews later this really interesting book was published.

From descriptions of the rapidity of the fatal attacks, the overcrowded hospitals and mass graves to the latest efforts to explain the way the epidemic spread and where it originated, Kolata has written a book that was a page turner for me. As for the seriousness of this particular influenza some estimates of the worldwide casualties go as high as 100 million deaths with many who "recovered" never being in good heath afterwards. It also tended to target the young and healthy and more than one general blamed the illness for their failures to reach their objectives in WWI.

Recommended for those interested in medical histories and research.
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LibraryThing member Eye_Gee
Gina Kolata is a great writer, however I'm surprised that she undertook this book and gave it this title since its central question -- why was the 1918 flu virus SO deadly? -- has not yet been solved. She does a great job of setting the stage, describing the impact of the epidemic, and introducing
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the work of scientists who have tried to solve the mystery. But as the book closes the work has not yet revealed an answer. This was a real anticlimax. Given the advances in biology and gene technology, I expect that an answer will be known within 5 years. As author, I would have been tempted to sit on my research until that day.
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LibraryThing member MrDickie
I enjoy working on genealogy and often note deaths that occured in worldwide 1918 flu epidemic. This interesting book covers the Influenza pandemic of 1918 itself and the attempts of scientist afterwards to find and isolate the virus itself.
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying. I learned a lot about the 1918 flu - I'd been aware of it, of course, but I had no idea of the scope of the disaster. Knowing that, the later scares about bird flu and the like make more sense. But then she goes on to describe some of the recent and current
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attempts to understand this flu virus; it's framed as a triumphant "we figured it out!" story, but in fact there are no solid answers yet. Things have been figured out, but they don't include why the 1918 flu was so virulent, why it harmed those it did, how to make a vaccine against it if it shows up again...it's very much a story in progress, which appears to dribble off inconclusively in the book. If it had been framed differently - as a search rather than a solution, say - it might have ended more smoothly. Still worth reading.
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LibraryThing member JessicaReadsThings
Finally finished this. I was really into it at first. It's an interesting overview of the efforts to identify the 1918 flu virus (Spanish Flu). It's pretty much a straight history. Not much speculation about emerging flu viruses. Although, that's probably a little harsh of me to say considering
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this was written in 1999. The main thing I found I didn't like about this book was that much of the writing was very repetitive. If I had a nickel for every time flu virus growing in chickens eggs was mentioned, I could probably buy a soda. And it was presented as new information every time. It made parts of the narrative feel disconnected, like these were essays stuck together rather than a book written as a whole.
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LibraryThing member kaida46
Flu by Gina Kolata (3 stars)
Not quite what I was expecting. Although the book does contain some interesting information about the search for the virus that caused the 1918 flu epidemic, it falls rather short on answering any burning questions about it. The book contains a lot of ancillary
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information, like listings of education degrees, names of scientists who attended conferences and strong unflattering opinions about an expedition to Norway to retrieve the virus (so it can possibly be studied), from burials of flu victims in arctic permafrost. It seems like the author was just trying to inflate word count without much of a real science mystery. A mediocre attempt. Blah.
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LibraryThing member pennsylady
It was nice to find scientific writing come through with a taste of a great adventure.

It might be a bit tedious if you don't like the meticulous series of success and failures that accompany scientific research or if you have minimal interest is hemaglutinins, genetic codes etc.

The great adventure
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takes takes us around the world in search of genetic material from 1918 and deep into the recesses of information sources.
I loved the reconstruction of the era and the contrast with pandemics that
followed.

This is a book you could read in depth or read with a lighter look

4*
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LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
Kolata describes the Flu epidemic following World War I. She relates scientists' efforts to locate living strains of the virus for study.
LibraryThing member Anniik
This isn’t really the story of the pandemic itself. There’s really only a chapter or two that goes into that. It’s mainly about the scientists trying to figure out what exact type of flu it was. Interesting, but not as interesting as it could have been.

Awards

NJCH Book Award (Winner — 2000)

Language

Barcode

7695
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