![]() ![]() In the middle sections of the book, the author describes how a dozen nations dealt with the epidemic. ![]() This may explain why infants and the elderly, with their weaker immune systems, had an easier time. ![]() Scientists have offered countless theories about the illness, but Spinney looks favorably at a recent theory that the 1918 virus provoked a “cytokine storm,” a deadly overreaction of the immune system. During spring and summer, it behaved like the usual flu, but in fall 1918, it turned deadly and spread across the world, killing 2.5 to 10 percent of victims, a fatality rate 20 times higher than normal. Despite the name, Americans were probably the first to experience the fever, cough, headache, and general miseries of the infection. It was mankind’s worst epidemic, writes Paris-based science journalist and novelist Spinney ( The Quick, 2007, etc.) in this fine account of influenza's history, its worst attack (so far), and its ominous future. Unlike the familiar flu, which targets infants and the elderly, it killed healthy adults. The history of “the greatest massacre of the twentieth century,” an illness that infected more than 500 million people.īetween 19, the “Spanish flu” killed more than 50 million people, far more than in the world war then raging. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |