To the general population, science seems like a field that consists of facts and certainty. However, this could not be further from the truth. The life’s work of a scientist can be taken away in an instant. In a passage from “The Great Influenza,” John M. Barry expresses that the success of a scientist depends on their capacity to handle challenges. Using ethos, extended metaphor, and rhetorical questions, Barry characterizes science as a path of uncertainty.…
|communities. Over 125 people perished almost immediately, mostly women and children. There were over 4000 survivors but their 1000 |…
What she hopes to find is a live virus of the Spanish Flu; if they do not find the virus, she hopes that they can at least recover the virus’s genetic footprint or the RNA residue. This sample will then be compared to every major influenza sample in the world’s virological centers. No one ever kept a sample of the virus in 1918, so the only way to know more about the virus, is to find the virus. The first case of the Spanish Flu occurred on March 4, 1918 in Kansas. In only one month the flu had spread to almost all of America and Europe, but quickly subsided. A month later the flu resurfaced, mutated, and had become a killer. The virus then spread virtually all over the world killing between twenty and forty million people. Normal influenzas infect the inner lining of the respiratory tract damaging the air-filled cells of the lungs known as alveoli. The Spanish Flu was much worse making the lungs very hard and red. This flu was causing people to drown by filling the alveoli with fluid. Patients would suffer from cyanosis or discoloration of the skin and would have mahogany spots on their cheek bones that sometimes spread all over the…
Another reason that the flu had such a severe impact on the U.S. military is because of the way that the military was structured and arranged during World War I. In her article, “The U.S. military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919”, Carol Byerly gives information about the organization of the military into camps. Byerly uses the example of Camp Devens in Massachusetts to show how seriously the epidemic affected military camps. According to Byerly, the flu spread over the course of only ten days to infect more than 15% of the soldiers stationed there. This was similar to Fort Shelby, where almost every new recruit became sick. Researchers such as Victor C. Vaughan, the Dean of the University of Michigan School of Medicine, and Rufus Cole,…
The 1580 pandemic is the first outbreak that we can be certain was Influenza. During the summer of 1580 the pathogen was recorded around Asia Minor and North Africa. Due to knowledge gained by Italian accounts, it is believed that it moved from Malta to Sicily in July 1580 and then had dispersed through the Italian peninsula by August of that same year. Throughout that time Phillip II lorded over Southern Italy, and several North African ports. So we can therefore theorise that this outbreak was likely caused by his troops that were sent to fight the Dutch.…
Anywhere between seventy five million to two hundred million people died as a result of the Plague, known as the Black Death. The Plague did not just affect the Peasants, as people died no matter the social class. This left empty spaces in the nation, that peasants could fill in and escape their lords feudalistic boundaries. However, without the help of towns and trade, these peasants would not have had many opportunities to flourish as they did.…
Lastly influenza killed 40 million people worldwide. The symptoms of influenza are sore throats, headaches, loss of appetite and blood poisoning. A large percentage of people died from this disease, once infected. It takes 3 days for the person to die. Influenza was transmitted by air. It was very bad…
John M. Barry uncovers the epic story of the horrible pandemic of 1918, one that killed as many as 100 million people across the world. Barry utilizes his journalistic skills and considerable medical research to share the story of the influenza and shed light on those who were caught up in the gruesome fight. The result is an in-depth, incredible narrative of the times and events shaped by the plague.…
In the early years of 1918 through 1920, influenza stormed around the world in the worst pandemic in recorded history, killing at least fifty million people, and more than half a million of them were Americans. Yet, despite the devastation, many groups of people within the United States handed this epidemic very differently from each other. There were differences between “men as well as women, whites as well as people of color, middle and upper classes, as well as the working class…”(Bristow p.9). After all the commotion of this monstrosity, and how it was feared, Americans had also neglected the pandemic and soon erased all events from their memory and history.…
During the Colonial Era numerous, lethal diseases were transferred around among the Europeans and Native Americans. These diseases killed countless people.…
During the year of 1918 the movement of troops during WWI spread the Influenza disease. Influenza arrived in the United States at a perfect timing when there many new forms of transportation, media, consumption and warfare had expanded into public places where diseases could spread more easily. The new forms of transportation really impacted the U.S. and why so many people easily contracted the disease. I will analyze two letters written to friends by a doctor and nurse to show some of the conditions and duties they had to endure during the pandemic of 1918. This letter was written by doctor, N.R. Grist.…
North America in the 19th century faced epidemics of diseases such as yellow fever, cholera, smallpox, influenza and typhoid (Taylor, 2009). Cholera first appeared in 1832; farmers, manufacturers and towns improperly disposed of animal and industrial waste in the waterways which perpetuated the spread. Climate, geographic location, physical contact with others and living environment were thought to be factors in the level of susceptibility (Harvard University Library Open Collections Program, 2013). The epidemic spread up the Mississippi River ultimately leading to the death of more than 50,000 Americans in 1866 (Taylor, 2009).…
One virus that is widely spread is influenza or known as the flu. Symptoms of this virus are fever, coughing, runny nose, soreness of throat, vomit, and so many more different symptoms.…
The Great Influenza is an account of the 1918 flu epidemic written by John M. Barry. Barry writes about scientists and their research of the great epidemic that killed thousands of people. John M. Barry uses many rhetorical strategies in his story to characterize scientific research. He also uses descriptive words to help the reader envision the story.…
Approximately 50% of the infested population died, which, was estimated between 19 to 38 million.…