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Chapter 21
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
The influenza virus of 1918 was a force of nature. Scientists knew they couldn’t control it, but they still tried to save as many lives as possible. A worldwide race for the cure began. Three questions confronted them: first, what was the epidemiology (how did the influenza behave when it spread)? Second, what was the pathology (what did it do to the body)? Third, what was the pathogen (what microorganism caused it)?
By pitting the battle between scientists and the virus as one between humanity and nature, Barry suggests that perhaps the scientists were fighting a war they’d never be able to win. At the same time, however, Barry recognizes how extraordinary scientists’ efforts were, that humanity had reached a point where it could even attempt to control and understand nature.
Themes
The first question about epidemiology turned out to have an easy answer. People with influenza “shed” the virus on roughly the third to sixth days that they had it. People could catch the virus by inhaling it or by contact between the hand and the mouth or nose (since the virus could survive on hard surfaces for days). All this means that the only way to combat the spread was a strict quarantine, which only slowed it down at best. The third question, about the pathogen, was the trickiest to answer but provided perhaps the best hope of effectively combatting the disease.
Many of the epidemiological details about the 1918 influenza virus resemble COVID-19 because they are both respiratory diseases that spread in similar ways. Discovering the pathogen became a major focus of research during the 1918 pandemic, since many investigators viewed it as the first step toward creating a cure or vaccine. This suggests that to fight back against nature, scientists must first understand it.
Themes
After a visit to Camp Devens, Welch himself began to feel unwell. He didn’t go to the hospital because he knew firsthand the horrors happening in hospitals due to the pandemic. Though the disease rendered him unable to leave the house for a long time, he was spared the worst symptoms.
Welch’s situation underscores how doctors and investigators weren’t immune to the dangers around them and how, in spite of all their expertise, their professions actually made them more vulnerable to the disease.
Themes
Scientists began combatting the disease with what they already knew, starting with the use of disinfectants to get rid of pathogens outside the body. One scientist named Richard Pfeiffer, working under Koch, believed that he discovered the bacterium that caused influenza (calling it Bacillus influenzae). Other scientists even began to nickname it after him, in part because of Pfeiffer’s stature in the scientific community. No one would challenge him, even though doubt is often a crucial part of good science. Many scientists began to believe that without Pfeiffer’s specific bacteria, there could be no influenza.
While Pfeiffer’s bacillus was a major breakthrough, in many ways his discovery actually stifled research that came after it, since it encouraged future researchers to investigate possibilities that ultimately weren’t productive. While the scientific community was not as rigid in suppressing dissent as George Creel was, the conditions during the pandemic nevertheless encouraged narrow-minded thinking that delayed progress.
Themes
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