THE GREAT INFLUENZA by John M. Barry

 As the pandemic hit our shores, I kept thinking about the last great pandemic, the so-called "Spanish Flu." This came a bit over a hundred years ago, time when modern medical science was just coming into its own.  While browsing through a Barnes and Nobel Bookstore, I came across a copy of John M. Barry's The Great Infuenza - The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. It's a fairly long and somewhat dense book at over 460 pages, but well worth the read.  Barry spends much of the first part of his book taking us back into the nineteenth century and working into the twentieth, chronicaling the development of modern medical science.  One forgets just how limited and 'backward' medicine was even 150 or so years ago, yet also the tremendous advancements that occurred as we moved deeper into the new century.  It was also sobering to read of the incredible impact this deadly influenza had on the world, more deadly, by far, than our current crisis.  World War I, of course, complicated our response to the pandemic, partly due to massive troop movements, and partly due to a slow and unwilling desire of those in high places to acknowledge the crisis and respond.  We were fortunate to not have the same conditions this time around.  Yet even a bit over a hundred years later it is interesting to see just how frustrated we still are in fighting against this virus.  With all the advances in medical science since that time multiple thousands of people have died the world over.  Part of our vulnerability this time around is living in a world accustomed to extensive traveling, partly by boat, partly by plane.  We carry these infections with even great efficiency.  But as I read Barry's account I realized the old adage of 'the more things change the more they remain the same.'  Isolation, fear, massive death, overwhelmed medical resources - these did not change.  We have better tools, but we are still at the mercy of some things we will never conquer entirely. 

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