Wash Your Hands

This Spring I read a terribly interesting, informative, humorous and tragic book called The Great Influenza by John Barry. As someone who grew up with a mild case of hypochondria, I found this book particularly interesting on the pure interest in diseases. But I seriously recommend it for anyone who is interested in learning about the greatest flu epidemic on record. 

 

Barry does a tremendous job interweaving the spread of the disease with the progress of World War I; in fact, he does a great job of showing how the war effort, in many ways, exacerbated the spread of the illness. He explains things on a medical level, going into great depths of how the virus works and how it mutates; he details the politics between scientists of the time; he explores the politics of the Wilson administration and the war effort; he retells the tragic stories of many people who died at the hands of the flu, as well as tales of miraculous survival. Most intriguingly, he postulates about the future of the nation and the world, as well as the future of the flu virus.

For instance, did you know that, according to Barry and many other highly credible sources, the U.S. is more likely to suffer another deadly flu epidemic than it is to suffer at the hands of a bio-terrorist attack? I know attacks have been attempted-- I refer to a successful one. Did you know that about 30,000 people still die from the flu and flu-related complications every single year? Did you know that the virus moves in a parabolic pattern; it moves from a milder virus, closer towards an extremely potent fatal virus, and back again.

I didn't know these things until I read the book.

This is one of those books that is completely not boring. It's over 300 pages long and I wish it had more pages for me to devour.

If you find yourself interested, you can purchase the book here. I highly recommend it.

I also highly recommend obeying those dinky posters that show you how to properly wash your hands to prevent the spread of disease...