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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
Fascinating read on what I thought would only be the story of the 1918 flu pandemic, but became a page turner on the beginnings of modern scientific laboratory medicine in the US and the amazing men (for the most part) who undertook this task with fury. I was also stunned to find how the course of WWI war pact was changed by the effects of the flu on US President Wilson’s brain. The flaws of this pact, leaving Germany in a dire mess, are a leading component to the rise of Hitler and WWII. I knew the later, but not the former referring to the flu brain disease. There’s so much to know about everything.
Although this book wasn’t perfect, it was wonderfully done. I didn’t anticipate the driving force behind the story to be a call to action to prepare for another influenza pandemic. It was fascinating to look at this as a mirror of the COVID 19 pandemic: lies of multiple governments, racism and classism impacting how it is portrayed and how quickly help arrives for certain groups, impact of global economy and interdependence, lack of preparedness for huge influx of hospital patients, and those in power refusing to take scientists seriously until things get bad.
My biggest hang ups were: the author’s use of slurs to describe Inuit people, repetitive phrases like “it’s only influenza”, and very little page time being given to minority groups in general.
My biggest hang ups were: the author’s use of slurs to describe Inuit people, repetitive phrases like “it’s only influenza”, and very little page time being given to minority groups in general.
wonderful, informative read about the pandemic of 1918. bits of it read like a text book - mostly when they are trying to explain the actual virus. However, I just skimmed most of that section and got on with the rest of the book. A bit scarry to think about how it came to be and could it happen again? I would highly recommed this book to anyone who is interested in world events and likes a bit of non-fiction mixed into their reading list.
I had trouble getting through it but found listening to so much narrative easier in the audiobook format.
I quite enjoyed reading this book, especially during COVID19, and I appreciated that most of the science writing was well done. The author managed to convey a complex story in an engaging and sometimes thrilling way. But:
- the book is bloated. It's probably trying to cover too much, but there are endless descriptions that don't add anything.
- there's a lot of "great man"ning of history & science. The author highlights two of the rare female scientists who worked in the field, but doesn't capture much from specific nurses - while he does from male doctors who were not researchers.
- and there's a lot of telling, not showing, about these "great men." Many scientists are repeatedly described as brilliant, or that other scientists considered them to be geniuses - but the audience is often not shown why. To be fair, Oswald Avery's discovery of is described thoroughly.
- Reading it during a pandemic, there are a few off-notes, notably that the author repeatedly denounces masks as something that don't work, without explaining why. ("The masks worn by millions were useless as designed and could not prevent influenza." "Surgical masks are next to useless except in very limited circumstances, chiefly in the home.")
- Most perplexingly, there are a few points that are mentioned multiple times during the book (like the people "locked in boxcars in Arizona and left on a siding in the desert"), and occasionally the looping back of different threads of history is confusing.
- the book is bloated. It's probably trying to cover too much, but there are endless descriptions that don't add anything.
- there's a lot of "great man"ning of history & science. The author highlights two of the rare female scientists who worked in the field, but doesn't capture much from specific nurses - while he does from male doctors who were not researchers.
- and there's a lot of telling, not showing, about these "great men." Many scientists are repeatedly described as brilliant, or that other scientists considered them to be geniuses - but the audience is often not shown why. To be fair, Oswald Avery's discovery of
Spoiler
DNA as genetic material- Reading it during a pandemic, there are a few off-notes, notably that the author repeatedly denounces masks as something that don't work, without explaining why. ("The masks worn by millions were useless as designed and could not prevent influenza." "Surgical masks are next to useless except in very limited circumstances, chiefly in the home.")
- Most perplexingly, there are a few points that are mentioned multiple times during the book (like the people "locked in boxcars in Arizona and left on a siding in the desert"), and occasionally the looping back of different threads of history is confusing.
The book has merits, and I learned a great deal. It is definitely well- researched. Simply stated, the work is overly comprehensive to the point of being overwhelming.
Three major sections stand out as separate entities, too complex for one book. First there is the history of medicine and medical education. There is a section devoted to biology—cells, bacteria, and viruses, including form and function. And lastly, the pandemic is addressed, including President (Wilson) and World War 1, which are actually stand-alone topics.
No doubt these matters have bearing on the subject of the influenza of 1918. However, the writer included an excess of detail on the supporting subjects which causes the work to be tedious in places.
Most confusing are the multitude of names of researchers from the early 20th century who were important in the field of bacteriology, virology, epidemiology, and medical education. Not being a biologist, I found it difficult to remember who was who and who did what. In general, the writer switched topics frequently with weak transitions. I would think a writer of this stature could maintain a better flow.
This book was written in 2004. The prescience of the author is uncanny and weird. He predicted our current crisis, down to the minutiae. What he did not foretell was the difficult leader in the White House.
Three major sections stand out as separate entities, too complex for one book. First there is the history of medicine and medical education. There is a section devoted to biology—cells, bacteria, and viruses, including form and function. And lastly, the pandemic is addressed, including President (Wilson) and World War 1, which are actually stand-alone topics.
No doubt these matters have bearing on the subject of the influenza of 1918. However, the writer included an excess of detail on the supporting subjects which causes the work to be tedious in places.
Most confusing are the multitude of names of researchers from the early 20th century who were important in the field of bacteriology, virology, epidemiology, and medical education. Not being a biologist, I found it difficult to remember who was who and who did what. In general, the writer switched topics frequently with weak transitions. I would think a writer of this stature could maintain a better flow.
This book was written in 2004. The prescience of the author is uncanny and weird. He predicted our current crisis, down to the minutiae. What he did not foretell was the difficult leader in the White House.
An interesting read, but not a well written book. It meanders on and on and on. It’s probably more accurate to say it’s a story of the researchers involved in science before, during and after the 1918 pandemic.
This is a brick of a book and took me awhile to get through. I found the chapters discussing the pandemic itself and how viruses work much more interesting than the opening chapters covering the broader history of medicine in the US. I do wonder how invested I would have been in finishing the book if we weren't currently living through something of a repeating history. I think much of this should have been required reading for the government and public health officials during 2020's COVID-19 pandemic. It seems we haven't learned much from some of our greatest mistakes then.
I've seen some other people give reviews on how this book wasted time talking about men who had nothing to do with the pandemic. I admit, it dragged on in places and I feel like could do better with organization, but it has a lot of useful information.
I liked all the extra information that some people complained about because it set the stage for the environment at the time, the stage that the medical field was at, the political feeling, the presence of the media, and how it all affected the pandemic. I probably appreciated it a lot more because of the pandemic we are all living (at the current moment I've been reading this book). Ever since COVID-19 hit, I have been more desperate to find out what happened in 1918. All I knew was that the Spanish Flu killed millions. I thought our pandemics were cured after that because of the advance in hygiene, science, and medical advancement. I just thought the swine flu and ebola were small blips of sicknesses that were handled and done away with. Of course, I was wrong.
Its amazing to see some of the similarities between the Spanish Flu and COVID-19. We had politicians who didn't really want to acknowledge or deal with it because they had other priorities, global movement, and lack of knowledge at the beginning.
I appreciate that the author dove into the science, not like I understood everything, but it helped me understand more about how coronavirus and the flu are similar (he talked about how they are cousins, the flu being a faster infected and killer than coronavirus, which takes its time) and how both of them differ from other diseases. Both of them are bad, due to how transmissible they are and how they can kill.
It also was interesting to hear about what the flu did to lungs, and how it wasn't actually usually the flu that killed people, but people's immune responses to it or pneumonia (a result of the sickness). It was also interesting to realize that it didn't always attack the lungs, but sometimes other parts of the body, which helped people survive it. The particular instance I remember from the book is when one of the scientists studying influenza got infected himself, so instead of going to the overcrowded and overrun hospitals, he went home and rested. He recognized the infection was more in his intestines (or was it liver? That general area), so he realized he would probably survive it. This reminded me of how COVID affects everyone differently.
There were a lot of things that I found interesting but instead of writing a book about it, I'll go with the other important point that I want to mention.
In the afterword, the author went into detail about how we weren't prepared for a new pandemic. Our hospitals aren't ready, there isn't enough funding for research or people watching out, and he was currently worried about H5N1 (book was written in 2005). Well, I guess he never thought about COVID. He also predicted that the next pandemic would come out of China, due the close proximity and living situation between animals and people. He also said a pandemic would come out of the fact that many governments don't want to admit that there is a problem due to the fact that pandemics, no matter how small, affect economies. It's so weird to read it with the situation we have lived through, because we have no lived through the worst situation that he talked about.
One thing this year has taught me is that history repeats itself, and when we don't study it, we forget it and we allow our mistakes to happen over and over. We all forgot what we learned from past pandemics, and because of this, we weren't prepared.
I liked all the extra information that some people complained about because it set the stage for the environment at the time, the stage that the medical field was at, the political feeling, the presence of the media, and how it all affected the pandemic. I probably appreciated it a lot more because of the pandemic we are all living (at the current moment I've been reading this book). Ever since COVID-19 hit, I have been more desperate to find out what happened in 1918. All I knew was that the Spanish Flu killed millions. I thought our pandemics were cured after that because of the advance in hygiene, science, and medical advancement. I just thought the swine flu and ebola were small blips of sicknesses that were handled and done away with. Of course, I was wrong.
Its amazing to see some of the similarities between the Spanish Flu and COVID-19. We had politicians who didn't really want to acknowledge or deal with it because they had other priorities, global movement, and lack of knowledge at the beginning.
I appreciate that the author dove into the science, not like I understood everything, but it helped me understand more about how coronavirus and the flu are similar (he talked about how they are cousins, the flu being a faster infected and killer than coronavirus, which takes its time) and how both of them differ from other diseases. Both of them are bad, due to how transmissible they are and how they can kill.
It also was interesting to hear about what the flu did to lungs, and how it wasn't actually usually the flu that killed people, but people's immune responses to it or pneumonia (a result of the sickness). It was also interesting to realize that it didn't always attack the lungs, but sometimes other parts of the body, which helped people survive it. The particular instance I remember from the book is when one of the scientists studying influenza got infected himself, so instead of going to the overcrowded and overrun hospitals, he went home and rested. He recognized the infection was more in his intestines (or was it liver? That general area), so he realized he would probably survive it. This reminded me of how COVID affects everyone differently.
There were a lot of things that I found interesting but instead of writing a book about it, I'll go with the other important point that I want to mention.
In the afterword, the author went into detail about how we weren't prepared for a new pandemic. Our hospitals aren't ready, there isn't enough funding for research or people watching out, and he was currently worried about H5N1 (book was written in 2005). Well, I guess he never thought about COVID. He also predicted that the next pandemic would come out of China, due the close proximity and living situation between animals and people. He also said a pandemic would come out of the fact that many governments don't want to admit that there is a problem due to the fact that pandemics, no matter how small, affect economies. It's so weird to read it with the situation we have lived through, because we have no lived through the worst situation that he talked about.
One thing this year has taught me is that history repeats itself, and when we don't study it, we forget it and we allow our mistakes to happen over and over. We all forgot what we learned from past pandemics, and because of this, we weren't prepared.
dark
hopeful
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced