Quotes from John M. Barry

The postulates state that before a microorganism can be said to cause a given disease, first, investigators had to find the germ in every case of the disease; second, they had to isolate the germ in pure culture; third, they had to inoculate a susceptible animal with the germ and the animal then had to get the disease; and, fourth, the germ had to be isolated from the test animal. Koch's postulates

Rumors spread that dogs carried influenza. The police began killing all dogs on the street. And people began killing their own dogs, dogs they loved, and if they had not the heart to kill them themselves, they gave them to the police to be killed.

Disease began to be seen as something that invaded solid parts of the body, as an independent entity, instead of being a derangement of the blood. This was a fundamental first step in what would become a revolution.

The study of epidemic disease is, of course, a prime focus of public health.

During the course of the epidemic, 47 percent of all deaths in the United States, nearly half of all those who died from all causes combined—from cancer, from heart disease, from stroke, from tuberculosis, from accidents, from suicide, from murder, and from all other causes—resulted from influenza and its complications.

course, if developing a universal vaccine were easy it would have been done, but for decades few resources went to such research. Consider for a moment that prior to the emergence of H5N1, the U.S. government was spending more money on the West Nile virus than on influenza. While influenza was killing as many as 56,000 Americans a year, West Nile in its deadliest year killed 284.

Biological systems are the product not of logic but of evolution, an inelegant process. Life does not choose the logically best design to meet a new situation. It adapts what already exists. Much of the human genome includes genes which are "conserved"; i.e., which are essentially the same as those in much simpler species. Evolution has built upon what already exists.

And West Nile will never be a major threat; it is not a disease that will ever explode through the human population. Yet it was receiving more research dollars than influenza.

During the course of the epidemic, 47 percent of all deaths in the United States, nearly half of all those who died from all causes combined—from cancer, from heart disease, from stroke, from tuberculosis, from accidents, from suicide, from murder, and from all other causes—resulted from influenza and its complications. And it killed enough to depress the average life expectancy in the United States by more than ten years.

Investigators today believe that in the United States the 1918–19 epidemic caused an excess death toll of about 675,000 people.

From that position he pushed for national medical insurance, which the medical profession then advocated, and in 1916 he became president of the American Medical Association. In his presidential address he declared, "There are unmistakable signs that health insurance will constitute the next great step in social legislation.

Yet even under a best case scenario, even with the new technologies, it will still take months to deliver large quantities of vaccine. In addition, much of the U.S. vaccine supply is manufactured outside the country; in a lethal pandemic, there is a question whether another government would allow its export before its own population was protected.

But as Camus knew, evil and crises do not make all men rise above themselves. Crises only make them discover themselves. And

Quinine worked on one disease: malaria. Many physicians gave it for influenza with no better reasoning than desperation.

Based on studies of what U.S. cities did in 1918, modelers have concluded that "layering" several interventions—most of them different kinds of "social distancing"—would at least stretch out the length of an influenza outbreak in a local community

Based on studies of what U.S. cities did in 1918, modelers have concluded that "layering" several interventions—most of them different kinds of "social distancing"—would at least stretch out the length of an influenza outbreak in a local community, easing the strain on the health care system.

It was more chilling still to see corpses littering the hallways surrounding the morgue. Vaughan reported, "In the morning the dead bodies are stacked about the morgue like cord wood." As Cole recalled, "They were placed on the floor without any order or system, and we had to step amongst them to get into the room where an autopsy was going on.

Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms. . . . There is nothing in experience to tell us that one is always preferable to the other. . . . There are lifeless truths and vital lies. . . . The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value. It matters very little if it is true or false.

Blue still did not organize a response to the emergency. Instead, the senior Public Health Service officer in charge of the city of Washington reiterated to the press that there was no cause for alarm.

But governors and mayors were demanding help, beseeching everyone in Washington for help. Massachusetts officials in particular were begging for help from outside the state, for doctors from outside, for nurses from outside, for laboratory assistance from outside. The death toll there had climbed into the thousands. Governor Samuel McCall had wired governors for any assistance they could offer, and on September 26 he formally requested help from the federal government.

Lippmann later called society "too big, too complex" for the average person to comprehend, since most citizens were "mentally children or barbarians. . . . Self-determination [is] only one of the many interests of a human personality." Lippmann urged that self-rule be subordinated to "order," "rights," and "prosperity.

When the Washington Post asked Tom Frieden, then head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, what scared him the most, what kept him up at night, he replied, "The biggest concern is always for an influenza pandemic . . . [It] really is the worst-case scenario.

Other recommendations are generally simple and obvious: for example, keeping sick children home from school—which is standard behavior—and having sick adults stay home from work—which is not standard behavior

But two days later, six hundred men were hospitalized with this strange disease. The hospital ran out of empty beds, and hospital staff began falling ill.