The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History

And calling physicians "Dr" is a recent invention. They "borrowed" the title to increase their status.

In the US, Johns Hopkins was the first real medical school, created in an attempt to catch the US with Europe, since our medical system SUUUUUUCKED. And in that process, that's when they borrowed "dr".

Book recommendation: The Great Influenza starts several decades before the ~~Spanish~~ Kansas Flu, with the story of how the US created a decent medical profession.

I finished John Barry's great book on the Spanish Flu: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491

First, keep in mind the Spanish Flu was, just that, the flu, it was influenza. As you know, influenza is constantly mutating.

The Spanish flu was primarily made up of two strains. The first came in the first wave. At first it was ignored and called "the 3-day fever" as people seemed to recover after 3 days. It was deadlier than previous flus, but not yet at the level it would become.

When the virus returned in its second wave, it had mutated further and became far more deadly.

Mutations are random. As the virus progressed, it continued to mutate, but the "extremely deadly" strain was an anomaly, the flu rarely gets as deadly as that strain was.

What happened was, as the flu continued to mutate, it simply mutated into a less deadly strain. It reverted back to its mean, as probability dictated it would.

The deadly "Spanish flu" strain was a freak goldilocks mutation, further mutations returned the strain back to the "normal" lethality range.

Influenza is bound to the laws of evolution, as we all are. If it was always as deadly as that Spanish Flu strain, then it would run out of hosts and kill itself off. To survive for as long as it has, the flu needs to be deadly, but not too deadly.

All that said, this is not influenza, this is SARS, it will not mutate in any meaningful way, it will not become any less lethal than it is. Sadly, we're facing something far more "single-minded".

Also, that's exactly the problem. People are thinking about this in terms of Wall Street, when they should be thinking about it in terms of epidemiology. Mother nature does not give a shit about your index fund.

You want to have a real look at what a disease like this can do to a modern society, read The Great Influenza. Pay particular attention to what happens when elected officials put business affairs ahead of the science. It looks exactly like what just happened, where Trump said "Everything's fine!" and the CDC said, "No it's not!" Who's right? Well it ain't fuckin' Trump.

First, I think it is unethical to hope for a worse outcome. Not because your thoughts will hurt other people, but because they will hurt you. It will diminish your character. It is something to think about and work on. It sounds like you are doing just that.

I tend to be Bearish on the economic outlook. How that translates to the market, I have no idea. But the level of pain is horrifying. And having read about the 1918 epidemic, the capacity for things to get much worse is under appreciated.

That said, I do not wish for anything bad to happen. I may buy (painful) puts as a hedge against stocks falling, but that does not mean I want them to print. My wife’s mother is retiring soon - for me to make money on those trades means she will lose much of what she worked her whole life for. And multiply that by millions.

So no, don’t hope for things to get worse. Be grateful they aren’t yet. We don’t know how much time we have here together. But at the same time, don’t invest solely based on your hopes either.

War? No. Violent waves of insurrection and bloody riots? Yeah, looks like it.

For what its worth, your historical references are a bit off.

1. Hotter than ever in your life? Kind of vague, can you be more specific? Some of us have longer memories than others.
2. Pandemic came at the end of WWI, and probably helped bring an end to the war. Probably also contributed to the Versailles treaty. (Source: John Barry, 'The Great Influenza')
3. 'Protesters dying daily' is a bit of a stretch. And there is no evidence to support the idea that the violent rioters have anything resembling popular support. Perhaps on a very localized basis, but localized uprisings do not a war make.
4. Most people don't want to see armed troops marching down their streets. Most folks also aren't willing to take up arms against those armed troops. For a variety of reasons.
5. A 'war' requires two sides, and generally has some territorial element to it. What are the sides of this conflict? Statists v. Anarchist? Antifa v. Feds? Portland v. Trump? State of Oregon v. DHS? Democrats v. Republican? Ancap v. Ancom?
6. Most people will only take up arms if they clearly understands what the terms of the conflict are and what is at stake. So far, there is no consensus over what is the goal of any conflict. That being the case, those that do take up arms in this environment are merely seeking to extend their own brand of tyranny onto the general population.

This book. The Great Influenza: The Story of... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036491?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Then you should read "The Great Influenza"

We are doing the same things they did back then. We're just bumbling it up.

Read The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036491/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_YMvaFbC9224W5

It's a really good book about the 1918 influenza outbreak.

Oh if you’re big into dark and depressing history, you should read this and then not come here

yo tengo este libro y es impresionante: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491

The Spanish Flu likely came from midwest animal farms in the U.S. These were huge farms, even if not huge by CAFO standards. source

The Great Influenza by John Barry has a lot of good detail about this. For a while there was a thought that the Bacillus influenzae was what caused the flu so they were trying to find that in specimens to determine if the patient had the flu; what made it worse is that it was small and difficult for some labs to find.

Fantastic podcast. Bought Barry's book immediately and I think I've found my new favorite author. Tons of context, history and great narration.

I'm reading "The Great Influenza"

It's a really detailed book about what happened in 1918-1919. There are so many similiarites but it uhh is also scary as hell.

I'd say the scariest part is that the pandemic back then came in three waves with the second wave being by far the most deadly. We're only on wave one......

"In 1918 the Republican-controlled Senate held hearings on the Wilson administration's mistakes in mobilizing the military. Republicans had despised Wilson since 1912, when he reached the White House despite winning only 41 percent of the vote. Mobilization failures seemed a perfect opportunity to embarrass him. And there was personal bitterness in the attacks: Congressman Augustus Peabody Gardner, son-in-law of Senate Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge, had resigned from Congress and enlisted, only to die of pneumonia in camp." -John Barry

Edit: Quote is from https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491 - one of the better history books about the USA's involvement in WW1, as well as the Spanish Flu.

It did exist. They weren’t necessarily administering it correctly, but it did exist.

Source:

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036491/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_tMOKEbBXDQCGE

Great book. Highly recommend.

Information about the 1918 flu was heavily censored because we were in the middle of WWI. That censorship probably carried forward, intentionally or not, as history textbooks were written. I only knew about it because my wife’s grandmother’s family lived in New York City at the time, and lost three family members to the flu. This is the book that spurred GWBush to develop the US’s first comprehensive pandemic plan:

The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036491/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_Gg6YEbCWN4N6G

No, it started in military bases in the US before our troops were deployed. It also killed 20-40 something adults in neutral nations and in the homefront too.

Here's a good book about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491

There's a great book about isolation procedures in hospitals that couldn't depend on antibiotics.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143036491/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_6HpSFb2JKD8V1

Am reading "The Great Influenza". It was definitely more fatal than COVID-19 by far. Remember, back in 1918 a lot more people were farmers or in rural areas. So the flu didn't have a chance to spread to as much of the population.

People would drop dead in hours, due to cytokine storms. Basically your immune system would use your lungs as a battlefield and carpet bomb it with fluid, white blood cells, mucus, etc. Normal lungs in an autotopsy would collapse as they were mostly air. Spanish Influenza lungs wouldn't - they were full of stuff other than air.

The people most affected were ages 20-35 - basically young, strong immune systems would overreact and kill the person. Any 5 year range in that age range would have more deaths than all people over 40.

People literally died within 12 hours after getting symptoms because of the way it affected the lungs. There was a story of a guy who was on a streetcar and 3 people dropped dead. He got off and walked.

Even if you didn't die directly from the flu, secondary infections would lead to pneumonia and kill people. I just read a part where someone found a bacteria, maybe even the bacteria that caused all the pneumonia, and thought it was the flu. In France they weren't finding that same bacteria, so they thought it was something else (not sure how long that mistake lasted, I haven't read past that).

The Great Influenza, by John Barry. A terrific read.

Yup. And this is why people who don’t take the precautions seriously piss me off right now.

Also... this is a fantastic read on the subject for anyone with more time on their hands than they expected.

>Every instance of the 1918 Flu originally came from Kansas.

Newer scholarship is calling this into question, with one historian more recently providing strong evidence that it probably started in China. The popular Haskell, Kansas origination theory is based on research that was later popularized in the early 2000s, most notably for American audiences in a 2004 popular history book by John Barry (still a great read today, I might add).

If you want to learn more about the amazing history surrounding the 1918 influenza pandemic, I highly recommend the book "The Great Influenza - The Greatest Pandemic in History" https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1KWPT4U5QSSJN&keywords=the+great+influenza+john+barry&qid=1583111765&sprefix=the+great+influ%2Caps%2C161&sr=8-1

There is strong circumstantial evidence the first animal to person migration of the deadly virus happened somewhere in Haskell County Kansas in the Spring of 1918, and from there made it's way to nearby Ft. Riley, where troops were prepped to debark for Europe during WWI. They took the flu to Europe where it is believed to have mutated to an insanely virulent form that had a lethality rate between 30 - 60%. For perspective, COVID-19 only has a 1% lethality rate. When the soldiers returned, bringing an even more deadly version of the virus, the bulk of deaths happened between the Fall of 1918 and the Spring of 1919.

Yes, our government waged a huge disinformation campaign to conceal the enormity of the problem believing it would undermine troop morale and the nation's resolve to fight the war. The other ugly secret was our government trampled on the constitution by arresting people merely for criticizing the government's handling of the epidemic. Newspapers publishers were threatened with jail time if they published anything that drew attention to how bad the pandemic was. This form of suppression meant few dared talk about it. Add to this the horrors of some communities having to stack all the dead bodies like cordwood along the street as there were no more caskets or people available to provide burial services, and the trauma of the pandemic produced what some psychologists believe equated to collective amnesia - much like soldiers experience with PTSD.

Fun fact: Our nation is dotted with mass graves where thousands of people were buried during the pandemic. Their exact locations are lost to history. Scientists with the CDC used one such mass burial sight in the Alaskan tundra to recover DNA from the deadly strain, which they recreated in the laboratory. They discovered the virus multiplies at a rate about 100X faster than any known strain of flu virus today. This explains the phenomena people described during the height of the pandemic where people would literally drop dead. As in, they would be in the middle of a conversation - appearing perfectly fine, then would suddenly collapse mid-sentence and be dead within 8 hours.

We had much worse racial unrest in the '60s and nobody would call that a civil war. Having just read a book on the 1918 flu, I think if covid gets really bad then people will respond by hunkering down at home, not fighting in the streets.

What I think you should actually worry about in the near term is that if Trump doesn't win the election, he might start a real war as part of a mad attempt to stay in power. This is a man who could well go to prison if he doesn't win the election, is considered by many experts to be a sociopath and malignant narcissist, who didn't see why we shouldn't use nuclear weapons, and has unchecked authority to use them.

If Trump does stay in power, the gloves will be off and there's no telling what he'll do.

I'm certainly not an expert on pandemics and don't have any training at all in that field. I have been curious about them though and done some reading. I was only dimly aware of the Hong Kong Flu (1968-69) until I came across some right winger's article claiming that it was irresponsible to hold Woodstock in the middle of a pandemic (8/69).

Any way here are some sources that you might find interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957%E2%80%931958_influenza_pandemic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_flu

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491

https://www.amazon.com/Flu-Influenza-Pandemic-Search-Caused-ebook/dp/B004YEJ6P8 - this one is pretty cool as it discusses scientists digging up people buried in the permafrost to try to recreate the virus that caused this pandemic.

https://www.amazon.com/Polio-American-David-M-Oshinsky/dp/0195307143 - I remember being a kid and given this vaccine in a sugar cube..... I'm gettin' old....

https://www.amazon.com/American-Plague-Molly-Caldwell-Crosby-ebook/dp/B002TZ3F5G/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I also read a bit about the Black Death and other plagues that have effected humanity. As bad as COVID-19 is nothing compared to some of the historical stuff.

https://www.livescience.com/worst-epidemics-and-pandemics-in-history.html

We should be smarter than we are. Whoever said he who will not learn from the past is doomed to repeat it was certainly right about COVID-19.

Enjoy reading!

The single best book about influenza in modern society that I have read is The Great Influenza by John Barry, about the 1918-1920 epidemics. Barry is not a medical doctor, but he is a professor at a medical school. He teaches public health policy to medical students at Tulane.

The last chapter is lessons for all of us going forward. On p. 457 he writes Surgical masks are next to useless except in very limited circumstances.

The mask is not about hygeine. It is about submission to authority.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Influenza-Deadliest-Pandemic-History/dp/0143036491