The History Book Club discussion

Tim wrote: "Holy cow. I had a few days where I was really busy and didn't even have any time to read, so I haven't checked in lately. But really neat to see all the recent engagement. Things have cleared up a ..."

Can't even look away for a few seconds and the place goes wild!

I think it might be Tim, but I think you are correct about his writing style especially in certain chapters where he might have been more impassioned and emotionally connected. But I think writing style and its appeal is a personal preference so some folks might not have picked up on it.

Well post on that book too (smile). We love to hear from everyone so just post your thoughts daily - anything - random or otherwise.

Kathy wrote: "Tim wrote: "Holy cow. I had a few days where I was really busy and didn't even have any time to read, so I haven't checked in lately. But really neat to see all the recent engagement. Things have c..."

(lol)

I'm really intrigued by Dr. Anna Williams. She was quite remarkable, not only for the success she achieved but while operating in that era as a woman. I looked her up in Wikipedia, and it looks like she had quite a great career even aside from her work on the Great Influenza.

I thought this was interesting, from Wikipedia:

Life of Williams was to change course in 1887, when her sister Millie narrowly escaped death giving birth to a stillborn child. Anna believed that the poor training of the doctor in attendance was partly to blame for the tragedy, and so she resolved to resign from her teaching position and retrain as a physician.

There is also a note in Wikipedia about her getting shafted on recognition for some of her work on diptheria.

The stuff about her liking to drive fast was a nice personal touch. Her being lonely in her personal life was very sad. There could probably be a whole interesting book/movie about her alone.

Tim, I agree - I found a more informative biography and some photographs which I thought you would enjoy:

Changing the Face of Medicine:





Anna Wessels Williams, M.D., worked at the first municipal diagnostic laboratory in the United States, at the New York City Department of Health. She isolated a strain of diphtheria that was instrumental in the development of an antitoxin for the disease. She was a firm believer in the collaborative nature of laboratory science, and helped build some of the more successful teams of bacteriologists, which included many women, working in the country at the time.

Anna Wessels Williams was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1863, to Jane Van Saun, and William Williams. In 1887, her sister Millie became very ill during childbirth and, partly due to the inexperience of the person caring for her, lost her baby and almost died. Anna Williams decided that she would train as a physician to give herself more control in such terrible situations. That same year she enrolled in the Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary, where she was taught by Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D.

Williams graduated in 1891 and then stayed on as an instructor in pathology and hygiene. In 1894, she volunteered at the New York City Department of Health's diagnostic laboratory, the first municipal laboratory in the United States, which opened in 1893. She worked closely with the director, William H. Park, M.D., on his projects to develop an antitoxin for diphtheria. Early on in her first year of work she was able to isolate a strain of the dipptheria bacillus from a case of tonsillar diphtheria. The isolated strain was a crucial discovery in the development of an antitoxin for the disease, and by the autumn of that year physicians in New York were being issued with diphtheria antitoxin free of charge to help eradicate the disease amongst the poor. Williams and Park shared the credit for the discovery, named the Park-Williams strain, and Williams was appointed to a full-time staff position as assistant bacteriologist. Although Williams had made the discovery while Park was away on holiday, she recognized the collaborative nature of laboratory research and concluded in her retirement "I am happy to have the honor of having my name thus associated with Dr. Park."

In 1896 Williams traveled to the Pasteur Institute in Paris hoping to find a toxin for scarlet fever that could be used to develop an antitoxin, as she had done for diphtheria. She was unsuccessful, but while there, she developed a new interest in the rabies work that was going on in Paris. She returned to the United States with a culture of the virus to try to develop a better way to diagnose rabies. By 1898 the culture had been used to develop enough vaccine to allow for the large-scale production of rabies vaccine. In 1904, an Italian doctor, Adelchi Negri, published his study of the brain cell changes accompanying the disease, which Willaims had also been working on, and these newly discovered indicators were named Negri bodies. Williams developed a new and fast method for preparing and staining brain tissue to show the presence of Negri bodies. Her method surpassed the original test and became the model technique for the next thirty years. In 1907, when the American Public Health Association established a committee on the standard methods for the diagnosis of rabies, they named Williams chair of the committee in recognition of her expertise.

In 1905, Dr. Williams was named assistant director of the Department of Health laboratory where she had worked since 1894. She and Park continued to work together closely and that same year published their classic text Pathogenic Micro-organisms Including Bacteria and Protozoa: A Practical Manual for Students, Physicians and Health Officers which quickly became known simply as 'Park and Williams' by readers. By 1939 the publication had been reprinted in eleven editions. Over the next few years, she worked toward the better diagnosis and treatment of venereal disease with Emily Dunning Barringer, M.D. and, in collaboration with S. Josephine Baker's Division of Child Hygiene, studied eye infections affecting the poorest children of New York City.

During World War I, Dr. Williams was appointed to a commission on influenza and directed a training program at New York University for the War Department, to train war workers for medical laboratories at home and overseas. She also researched the ways to diagnose meningitis carriers in the military. In 1929, Williams and Park published Who's Who Among the Microbes, though to be one of the earliest books on the topic written for the public. She retired in 1934 at the age of 71.

Although the collaborative nature of laboratory work and especially her close association with Park may have prevented Dr. Williams from receiving greater recognition for her achievements, she was a well-respected scientist who played an integral role in the understanding and control of contagious diseases. In 1914 she was elected president of the Woman's Medical Society of New York. In 1931 she was elected to an office in the laboratory section of the American Public Health Association and the following year became the first woman appointed chair of the section. In 1936, the New York Women's Medical Society honored Dr. Williams for her services to the city at a testimonial dinner. In her acceptance speech, she thanked the colleagues she had worked with over the years, including many of the women who were building careers in bacteriology alongside her or under her own mentorship at the Department of Health.

Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine

Thanks Bentley. Great stuff, love the pictures especially.

Bentley, thank you for that marvelous thumbnail biography of Dr. Williams ... everyone has a story, and hers is remarkable.
Regards,
Andrea

You are welcome Tim and Andrea - yes her story stands out.

This is this week's assignment:

Week Eleven - (pages 321 - 366) - September 14th - September 20th

Chapter 28 - (pages 321 - 333)
Chapter 29 - (pages 334 - 350)
Chapter 30 - (pages 351 - 366)

I'm not really much of a poetry person but I did enjoy the Robert Frost poem quoted in Chapter 29. Here is the full poem:

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

That is some dark humor there. Reminds me of all the jokes you see now in Social Media about how 2020 is so terrible. I think Robert Frost would be been popular on Twitter! :)

The poem was written in 1920 but so far I can't find out if it was literally influenced by conditions of the pandemic.

Tim wrote: "I'm not really much of a poetry person but I did enjoy the Robert Frost poem quoted in Chapter 29. Here is the full poem:

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From ..."
Tim, I agree with you. If it doesn't fit the 1918 Influenza, it certainly fits today. I too am not much into poetry as well. But I watch PBS Newshour most nights and Jeffrey Brown interviews poets all the time and I'm gaining more of an appreciation. Kathy

Kathy - neat stuff about PBS Newshour. I would like to gain more appreciation for poetry but not really sure where to start.

In another moment of eerie parallels to today - Seeing the blaming of Germany for the virus described in Chapter 29, I can't help but think about labeling the Coronavirus as the "China Virus".

Tim wrote: "In another moment of eerie parallels to today - Seeing the blaming of Germany for the virus described in Chapter 29, I can't help but think about labeling the Coronavirus as the "China Virus"."

It seems to me these chapters have a number of parallels to today. Like the President saying he didn't want to create panic by telling the truth to the public when he has been called out for saying the Coronavirus was very serious to Bob Woodward, yet downplaying it at the same time in press briefings. And he and many members of his administration still trying to downplay it. We are fortunate that today's virus doesn't have the death rate that the 1918 influenza had and that today's medicine is better. But still we are reaching 200,000 dead and no end in sight.

Tim wrote: "I'm not really much of a poetry person but I did enjoy the Robert Frost poem quoted in Chapter 29. Here is the full poem:

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From ..."

Possibly Tim - I am not sure if the pandemic at that time had anything to do with the poem but it certainly had an ominous beginning.

Tim wrote: "In another moment of eerie parallels to today - Seeing the blaming of Germany for the virus described in Chapter 29, I can't help but think about labeling the Coronavirus as the "China Virus"."

Very true Tim.

We can talk about Chapter 32 now right? That was crazy stuff about Wilson getting the Influenza, and all the ripple effects.

Tim wrote: "We can talk about Chapter 32 now right? That was crazy stuff about Wilson getting the Influenza, and all the ripple effects."

I think we can. I just finished the reading for this week. I had never heard Wilson had influenza and how it may have impacted the negotiations at Versailles. Huh! Learn something new everyday.

Goodness, Tim and Kathy, the Wilson biographers that I’ve read recently all attribute Wilson’s lapses at the Paris Peace Conference to a series of minor strokes, the run-ups to the massive stroke he suffered on the campaign to convince the public to join the League. If memory serves, that includes A. Scott Berg and Patricia O’Toole.
Regards,
Andrea

by Patricia O'Toole (no photo)
by A. Scott Berg (no photo)

Andrea wrote: "Goodness, Tim and Kathy, the Wilson biographers that I’ve read recently all attribute Wilson’s lapses at the Paris Peace Conference to a series of minor strokes, the run-ups to the massive stroke ..."

And he admits that but I think the doctors at the time attributed it to the influenza and there is evidence (just like in today's coronavirus) that the influenza did in fact impact cognitive function. And no one will ever know which it was that caused his decline ultimately resulting in a major stroke.

Yes, you can talk about Chapter Thirty- two now with no spoilers whatsoever.

Chapter 33 - Why hasn't the Great Influenza been more present in movies and literature? Why aren't there more books about it, and why isn't it more well known? Before Covid-19, it might not be an overstatement to say it was generally forgotten or unknown by most. How does something so devastating get lost to history?

Part of it is that people just don't want to think or talk about it. This is probably especially true of the people who directly lived through it, and did not want to relive the pain. But that isn't the full story, as Wars are endlessly written and discussed.

But wars are driven by the actions and decisions of people. People's decisions impacted the spread and harm of the Great Influenza, but not in the same way as a War. There is something about how the Great Influenza emerged naturally that has made it less discussed. I suspect also that it involves some complicated Science that some people don't understand has an impact.

Sometimes Tim - it seems that some of the most dreadful events in history are swept under the rug or information is curtailed about it.

The Armenian Genocide, the Turks and the Kurds, the Syrians and the Kurds, even some documentation regarding the Holocaust, atrocities in Yemen, the Taliban, etc. So many events that are never covered or discussed as if they did not ever happen. One reason for the gag order on the Spanish Flu was because even our country censored the news organization to not report on the pandemic as did other countries. Since Spain was reporting on it and did not have the same degree of censorship they inherited the name - the Spanish Flu even though its origins were not in Spain.

Also, it wasn't until decades later did the scientific understanding that it was a virus sink in.

Loads of reasons I surmise. But a good question.

Tim wrote: "I'm not really much of a poetry person but I did enjoy the Robert Frost poem quoted in Chapter 29. Here is the full poem:

Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From ..."


Tim,

Another place to learn more about poetry: podcast from NPR called "Poetry Unbound". Heard about it tonight on All Things Considered and thought of you. Probably TMI. But I'm passing it on anyway.

Regards.

How are you all doing? Finish the book yet?

I keep thinking about Barry’s central message - don’t lie, don’t even try to put a good face on things. Just give it to people straight. Recent events are bringing this into sharper focus.

Very true Tim

This article says there was a "once in a lifetime" climate anomaly during the period of the Great Influenza, leading to colder temperatures and more rainfall, that contributed to the severity of the epidemic.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Tim wrote: "This article says there was a "once in a lifetime" climate anomaly during the period of the Great Influenza, leading to colder temperatures and more rainfall, that contributed to the severity of th..."

here's hoping for a mild dry winter

A new article by John Barry on the current pandemic:


Herd Immunity? Or ‘Mass Murder’?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/op...

Thanks for sharing Kathy. Great article. It made a lot of good points. It was also was fair - it acknowledged how the restrictions are causing a lot of devastating damage to people's lives.

On CNN:

'Great Influenza' author outlines what herd immunity supporters won't say

'Great Influenza' author John Barry pushes back on the Great Barrington Declaration, a controversial document written by three scientists who propose allowing low-risk people to return to life as normal while protecting those at high-risk to Covid-19. Source: CNN

https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/10...

Source: CNN

What Dr. Fauci thinks about Joe Biden's mask plan
Smerconish

Dr. Anthony Fauci discusses Joe Biden's proposal to mandate masks in order to combat the coronavirus.Source: CNN

Link: https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/202...

Source: CNN

Thanks Bentley. Interesting that Barry supports school openings, even though he has been a vocal critic of loosening up more generally.

Nice chatting with you all about the book. What are you reading next? I am finishing up the Madison biography and I think I am going to read the Hoover biography next.

Tim wrote: "Nice chatting with you all about the book. What are you reading next? I am finishing up the Madison biography and I think I am going to read the Hoover biography next."
I was planning to read the same thing if the BOTM opens up. Sometimes Bentley doesn't open them up and this has gotten pushed back at least once. I also have a Washington and Grant book to read which I'll read instead if the Hoover doesn't get done in the book club.

Neat. Hope to see you on the Hoover page.

Yes I was surprised by the school openings as well.

I am opening them up tomorrow.

I haven't listened to this podcast before, but I recently came across this episode and it was worth a listen.
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science...

It's the story of a Swedish researcher going to Alaska decades after the 1918 pandemic to look for frozen bodies that might still have a live virus to research.

Tim wrote: "I haven't listened to this podcast before, but I recently came across this episode and it was worth a listen.
https://gimletmedia.com/shows/science...

It's the story of a Swedish researche..."

Thanks. I had seen something on this earlier but didn't have time to focus on it at the time.

Good posts thank you.

I wanted to add the remaining Chapter Overviews and Summaries for those who would like to read this informative book and help those folks along. The threads are never closed and we invite you to post long after the structured read has closed. We will always respond and the threads are always open for your postings. It is never too late to begin reading any book that we have completed or are discussing at The History Book Club.

Chapter Overviews and Summaries:

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In Chapter 28, in Philadelphia, Lewis worked without rest to find an answer to the epidemic. It seems that his only weakness was his willingness to take advice from those he respected. One of those people he respected was Pfeiffer so he abandoned his idea that it was a virus causing the disease.

Because the government was doing nothing for them, the wealthiest citizens of Philadelphia decided to use the Council of National Defense to take charge of their city. Krusen ceded control of nurses to this private group. He asked that doctors from Philadelphia that had not yet been sent to war be allowed to return to that city.

Blue endorsed the request. Krusen also ordered the streets cleaned. Police officers, Emergency Aid, and workers from the Catholic Church also began to clear the bodies that had been stacking up. Families often had to dig graves for their loved ones because the gravediggers refused to work.

At one point, the city used steam shovels to dig mass graves. Even though doctors were too busy to keep records and many patients never saw a doctor, it was estimated that half a million people in Philadelphia had the flu. The sickness in Philadelphia peaked the week of October 16 when 4,597 people died from the flu, pneumonia, or conditions related to the flu.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

In Chapter 29, the press made the situation worse by saying so little about it.

For instance, when the Providence Journal reported that there were 3,500 cases of flu at Camp Devens, the papers indicated the soldiers were following orders to stay in bed, but were not that sick.

Blue continued to indicate there was no reason for alarm.

Colonel Philip Doane, the officer in charge of health at the country’s shipyards, told the people it was not the flu, but the old-fashioned grippe. As officials tried to control this fear with their lies, it only made matters worse.

The leaders with the Chicago Health Commission refused to close public places reasoning that damaging the morale of the people would create fear, which would kill more people than the disease.

The Journal of the American Medical Association was the only publication that told the truth, that the advice and reassurances being given were not only wrong, but deadly.

Meanwhile, the people were also seeing calls for nurses and hearing commands for public places to close, a reality that conflicted with the reassurances.

Barry notes that one man who rose above himself during this crisis was Dr. Ralph Marshall Ward. He had been a physician, but was tired of working on the mangled men sent to him by the nearby railyard so he took up a career as a cattle rancher. When his ranch hands got sick with the flu, he started treating them and word spread.

One day the Ward family’s yard was filled with sick Mexicans needing treatment. They compared what followed to the hospital scene in the movie Gone With the Wind. When it was over, Ward and his wife went back to Kansas City, back to his career of being a doctor.

Other people, however, were at their worst as a result of the epidemic. Dr. M. G. Parsons, the U.S. Public Health Service officer for northeastern Mississippi, informed the people through news articles that the Germans were responsible for sending the virus to America. He believed that if he made the people afraid that he could control them better.

Morale began to fall as people began to be afraid of getting sick. Doctors and Red Cross workers would not continue to work because they were afraid they would get sick. In the shipbuilding industry, the men were told they were safer at work because there were still doctors are nurses there. Sill, more than 50 percent of workers still stayed home even though they would not get paid.

Chapter 30

In Chapter 30, Barry describes the unscientific things that some physicians did in an attempt to help their patients.

Some doctors gave every vaccine they had available to them thinking these vaccines would strengthen the immune system. Doctors gave quinine, which helped with malaria, out of desperation. Cupping and bleeding were used.

Many who did not see doctors or nurses were given folk or fraudulent medicines. The Army created a vaccine but would not share it with civilians.

None of the medicines or vaccines developed at that time could prevent the flu. The masks were deemed useless as a result of their design. The only way to prevent the flu was to prevent exposure and most places did not enforce strict enough quarantine measures.

Source: Book Rags

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Part Nine

Chapter Thirty-One:

In Chapter 31, Barry compares the way the flu died out to the way the Martians were killed off by viruses in H.G.Wells' War of the Worlds.

He describes that at first, the natural process made the virus more lethal. Then the people in the communities through which these viruses passed developed some immunity. After a run of six to eight weeks in typical communities, the disease died out.

There were individual cases after that, but generally the end was abrupt. The virus also mutated to a less severe strain.

When the army’s chief investigator George Soper conducted an in-depth review of the pandemic, he determined that nothing had changed except the virus. He found that the only effective treatment for the disease was isolation.

There was a third wave when the virus mutated again. In San Francisco, public health director William Hassler quarantined and mobilized the city in advance. For that reason, they survived the third wave with few deaths. During that time the people felt a sense of control rather than fear.

Chapter Thirty-two:

In Chapter 32, Barry describes how the flu impacted the brain and nervous system. Symptoms included dementia, depression, agitation and violence, and delirium even after the fever had subsided. The flu was linked to cases of Parkinson’s a decade later.

Barry particularly focuses on Wilson and his behavior in Paris in early 1919 during the conferences to determine the terms of peace. Wilson, French premier Georges Clemenceau, and Prime Minister Lloyd George of Great Britain did most of the negotiations.

Months into the negotiations, on April 3, Wilson was overtaken by the flu. Just before he had gotten sick, Wilson had threatened to leave the negotiations without a treaty instead of easing his principles. He repeated the threat after he began to recover from the flu.

Gilbert Close, Wilson’s secretary, noted that the president was acting peculiarly. As delegations continued, it appeared Wilson’s mind had lost its resiliency.

At one point, Wilson believed his home was full of French spies. While Wilson was still sick in bed, he suddenly yielded to the demands of Clemenceau, everything that Wilson had previously opposed. When the Germans were presented with the finished treaty, even they complained that it violated Wilson’s principles.

Four months later, Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke. It was widely accepted that Wilson had suffered a smaller stroke previously, instead of having had the flu.

Barry insists Wilson had not suffered a stroke, that he just had the flu. He does accept that perhaps the flu led to a stroke, and points out that suggests that perhaps the flu led to the debilitating stroke.

He points out that even Cary Grayson, the president’s personal doctor, believed flu was the cause of Wilson’s breakdown.

Barry suggests that it was because of the concessions to which Wilson agreed that Hitler was able to come to power in Germany. He ends his chapter with the words: “Wilson had influenza, only influenza” (388).

Chapter Thirty-three:

In Chapter 33, there was another round of the flu in 1920. These bouts in 1920 saw the second or third most deaths in the 20th century from the flu and pneumonia.

Barry describes the legacy of the flu in the number of orphaned children, the physical weakness left by the flu, and the number of people killed. He indicates, however, there were also good outcomes as public health efforts throughout the country were restructured. Some emergency hospitals were also made into permanent ones.

Source: Book Rags

Chapter Overviews and Summaries

Part Ten

Chapter Thirty-Four:

In Chapter 34, Barry describes how the scientists worked nonstop during the time of the flu epidemic. It was important to them they had always worked from well-grounded hypotheses. While they accepted less evidence than they generally would to reach a conclusion during the time of the epidemic, they prided themselves because they did not do things, like using quinine on flu victims, that went against their understanding of how the body worked. At the same time, these scientists recognized their failures. They realized they were not on the verge of conquering the flu, but they continued to work.

Hermann Biggs, New York state’s commissioner of Public Health, called for an influenza commission on Oct. 30, 1918. The group included Cole, Park, Lewis, and Rosenau along with epidemiologists and pathologists. At the first meeting, the scientists could not agree on the symptoms of the disease, or if it was really the flu. They could not even agree on what pathogen had caused the epidemic. They knew only for sure the complete quarantine worked.

Chapter Thirty-five:

In Chapter 35, because the scientists had so much trouble locating Bacillus influenzae in all of the cases of flu, there were doubts that this bacteria caused the flu at all. Anna Williams, a deputy at the New York City Health Department, wrote in her diary that she was more and more convinced that it was a virus that was causing the flu.

Avery, meanwhile, concentrated on pneumococcus. It has been nearly ten years since he had published anything when he produced the paper: “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types. Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumoccus Type III” (424).

Avery did not receive the Nobel award for science because the committee that awarded that prize decided Avery’s discovery was too revolutionary.

Chapter Thirty-Six:

In Chapter 36, Lewis continued to believe it was the bacteria that caused the flu, an insistence that caused the downfall of his career. He accepted a job with the University of Iowa but was restless and discontent. He decided to take a year and conduct his own research. Flexner allowed Lewis to spend two years at the Rockefeller Institutes.

Lewis and his assistant Richard Shope worked on his tuberculosis research, but were unable to produce the same results that Lewis had in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Shope had begun working on the cause of a severe outbreak of the swine flu. About the same time, Hideyo Noguchi, a representative of Rockefeller, claimed to have isolated the cause of yellow fever. His results were attacked and Noguchi went to Ghana to prove his results. He died in Ghana of yellow fever.

The Rockefeller Institute wanted to know if Noguchi had isolated the pathogen. Lewis volunteered to do the investigation and was sent to Brazil to study yellow fever. Just five months after Lewis arrived in Brazil, he contracted the disease. Barry writes it is not known if Lewis’ death was intentional or accidental.

Two years after Lewis’ death, Shope published three papers in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Shope listed Lewis as the lead author on one of these papers that argued that the flu was caused by a virus. If Lewis had lived, Barry notes that his reputation would have been secure at that point. He credits Lewis as having been the last victim of the 1918 flu pandemic.

Photo shows doctor embracing a 'vulnerable,' 'lonely' COVID-19 patient on Thanksgiving
Joel Shannon
USA TODAY



Link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/h...

Source: USA Today