Product Description

A scientific history of the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918, which killed at least 40 million people. The author details the science and latest understanding of flu, examines the chances of a great epidemic recurring and explores what can be done to prevent it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #892508 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Feeling tired, achy and congested? You'll hope not after reading science writer Gina Kolata's engrossing Flu, a fascinating look at the 1918 epidemic that wiped out around 40 million people in less than a year. This tragedy, just on the heels of World War I and far more deadly, so traumatised the survivors that few would talk about it afterward. Kolata reports on the scientific investigation of this bizarre outbreak, in particular the attempts to sequence the virus's DNA from tissue samples of victims. She also looks at the social and personal effects of the disease, from improved public health awareness to the loss of productivity. (The disease affected 20 to 40-year-olds disproportionately.)

How could this disease, now almost trivial to healthy young people, have become so virulent? The answer is complex, invoking epidemiology, immunology and even psychology, but Kolata cuts a swath through medical papers and statistical reports to tell a story of an out-of-control virus exploiting an exhausted world on the brink of transition into modern society. Through letters, interviews and news reports, she pieces together a cautionary tale that captures the horror of a devastating illness. Research marches onward, but we're still at the mercy of something as simple as the flu. --Rob Lightner, Amazon.com

From the Publisher
Praise for FLU
‘Terrifying . . . Kolata’s informative study is also a thrilling detective story.’ Daily Mail

‘[Kolata] brilliantly captures the human face of scientific endeavour.’ Times Higher Education Supplement

'Compelling and informative . . . Kolata writes with the authority of an expert . . . in a lucid and accessible style’ Irish News Book of the Week

‘The clarity and readability of a microbiological Conan Doyle’ Evening Standard

‘Gripping’ The Times

‘A readable treatment of big ideas, high stakes and the aftermath of tragedy on a colossal scale.’ Times Educational Supplement

‘Flu becomes something of a page-turner . . . well-researched and well-plotted.’ Financial Times

‘Kolata tells her story as an adventure mystery (which virus was the mass murderer of 1918?) and her handling of technicalities is easy to follow . . . This book won’t give you immunity, but it will give you insight.’ Sunday Times

‘Fascinating scientific history.’ Guardian

‘Her readable and compelling narrative is highly recommended.’ New York Times

Customer Reviews

Deceptively titled
FLU: THE STORY OF THE GREAT INFLUENZA PANDEMIC OF 1918 AND THE SEARCH FOR THE VIRUS THAT CAUSED IT starts out impressively with a chapter on the influenza pandemic of 1918, which globally caused the caused the deaths of at least 20-40 million people (and perhaps up to 100 million), followed by a chapter on the history of disease pandemics and death in history. I thought, wow, this could be another riveting book like 1994's HOT ZONE, which was inspired by the Ebola virus. However, in its middle chapters, FLU drifted off course to a discussion of other flu scares of the late 20th century, specifically the Swine Flu fiasco of 1976 and the Hong Kong Flu panic of 1977. In retrospect, neither was relevant to the deadly 1918 virus except to illustrate the epidemiologists' fixation with influenza as a potentially catastrophic killer. Thus, the book should perhaps have been titled FLU: THE BOGEY MAN UNDERNEATH EPIDEMIOLOGISTS' BEDS. Moreover, though author Gina Kolata did return to the "search for" subtheme, even that fizzled by the end. The hunt for the 1918 virus, and a delineation of what made it so uniquely vicious, remains a story whose ending remains to be written. The HIV virus has replaced the influenza virus as the focus of the scientific community's investigative efforts.

There was one aspect of FLU that I did find notable, and that was a hint of gender bias on the part of the author towards the book's three principal "heroes": Dr. Johan Hultin, Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, and Dr. Kirsty Duncan. All three attempted to recover the 1918 virus from the lung tissue of victims that died from the disease. Hultin, a San Francisco pathologist, went looking for corpses of Eskimos buried in the Alaskan permafrost. Duncan, a geographer by profession, organized the exhumation of dead miners buried at Spitzbergen, Norway. Taubenberger, an MD/PhD researcher with the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, went rummaging among tissue samples preserved in paraffin blocks stored for decades at the institute. Kolata admiringly described the professional pedigrees and accomplishments of both Hultin and Taubenberger, but virtually ignored Duncan, except to infer that her "long hair and doe eyes and raw emotions" may have had an unsettling effect on the marriage of one of her team members. Oh, and that Duncan's own marriage broke up. (Was this relevant? Who cares?) Moreover, images of Hultin and Taubenberger hard at work are featured in the volume's too paltry section of photographs, but not Duncan. And, in the "Acknowledgements", the author thanks Hultin and Taubenberger for their "extraordinary assistance", but no gratitude, however lukewarm, is awarded Duncan. Do I perceive some cattiness here? Meow!

I found FLU marginally interesting, but it in no way met expectations. I wouldn't recommend buying it unless you're obsessed with the subject matter.

Absolutely gripping
In August of 1918, the flu returned after its summer hiatus. However, something had seriously gone wrong after the mild flu of the preceding winter. Soldiers, and other young, healthy people started dying of a terrible pneumonia. The leading doctors of the era slaved to find a cure, but the disease seemed resistant to every step they took. Finally, after having carried away some 100 million people(!), the disease simply disappeared.

This book tells the tale of that last great pandemic, and the subsequent search to identify the virus, to see to it that the disease never returns. Among the biggest events that it covers are the plague year of 1918, the Swine Flu fiasco of 1976, and the 1997 race to stop the spread of a deadly avian flu that was spreading in Hong Kong.

I found this book to be nothing short of gripping! I had read several references to the 1918 flu, but have never really understood the matter. Indeed, the author's treatment of the 1976 Swine Flu and 1997 Hong Kong chicken flu (both of which I do remember) made a number of things suddenly come quite clear.

I deeply enjoyed reading this book, and give it my highest recommendation. If you want to read a gripping whodunit, or a medical-type history book, or want to under current events pertaining to diseases, then I strongly suggest that you read this book!

Disappointing
Bad editing - and sloppy copy-editing - mar what ought to be a good book. There really is room for something better than this (and it isn't "Catching Cold", either) covering the whole subject. It's a shame, because parts are quite good, but it is undermined by an over-long ramble about the 1972 swine flu panic and the Ford administration's bothched attempts to deal with it in the US - of relatively minimal interest. This is roughly twice as long as the discussion of the 1918 outbreak itself...

Uneven, and with some unfortunate laughable errors and inconsistencies which do the author no service at all. Borrow it, don't buy it.