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Chapter 19
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Great Influenza, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Leadership and Crisis
Truth, Free Press, and Propaganda
Science vs. Nature
Education, Research, and Institutions
Summary
Analysis
Despite rumors about the Black Death, the virus was definitely influenza. Most victims still got well, although many of them still experienced painful symptoms. Those who survived recounted intense pain coming from everywhere, and some never fully recovered.
While living through the 1918 influenza pandemic was horrifying, Barry clarifies that the disease was not as deadly on an individual level as some previous deadly epidemics. The fact that some individuals never recovered from the disease also reflects how, on a broader level, some cities and even countries didn’t recover from the disease for a long time.
Themes
The victims experienced a wide range of symptoms, many of which were previously unknown for influenza. Joint pain, extreme headaches, and even losing the ability to smell were all possible symptoms. In U.S. Army camps, 5 to 15 percent of all men hospitalized had severe bleeding from the nose that was reminiscent of Ebola. The virus never seemed to cause just a single symptom.
While the virus caused a wide range of physical symptoms, it also had a wide range of disruptive effects on society more broadly. The virus caused new symptoms previously unheard of for influenza, and it also caused a pandemic on a scale that was previously unheard of.
Themes
Over the course of the pandemic, 47 percent of all U.S. deaths were from influenza or its complications, reducing life expectancy by over 10 years. Some of these patients might have died anyway, so the most important figure is the “excess death” toll, which is still staggering. It was so high that a comparable percentage of the population dying in 2006 would have been 1,750,000 deaths.
Barry avoids trying to distort the death figures to be as shocking as possible; instead, he provides context about which figures are most important. This relates to the ongoing theme of the importance of the truth and the ultimate futility about trying to persuade people with half-truths and propaganda.
Themes
Normally, influenza kills the “weakest” people, like the very young and the very old. But the new influenza spike caused a massive spike in deaths for young adults. An army doctor studying the lungs of infected victims concluded that the effect on the lungs looked similar to poison gas.
The devastation caused by influenza was eerily similar to the type of devastation that was typically caused by war, both in the demographic affected and in the poison-gas-like effect the disease had on the lungs.
Themes
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