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Chapter 26
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
While influenza was unstoppable in the U.S. and Europe, more active intervention and stricter quarantines could have interrupted its process. The decisive actions taken to stop SARS in 2003 are one example how effective intervention can be (although influenza is more contagious than SARS). Though the influenza pandemic was in some ways unprecedented, cities had mobilized with stringent measures against diseases before, as the East Coast did for polio in the late 19th century.
When Barry first published the book, some political commentators believed that the U.S. and other countries had overreacted to the threat of diseases like SARS, which never caused destruction on the same scale as something like the 1918 pandemic. Here, Barry attempts to rebut that argument, arguing instead that the reaction to SARS was necessary and that it was precisely this intervention that prevented it from turning into a global pandemic.
Themes
Though Blue’s Public Health Service fumbled the initial pandemic response, his administration and the Red Cross had a chance to do some good in October by providing doctors and nurses to the areas most in need. Even without a cure, doctors still had the potential to save lives. Doctors learned that patients should continue to rest even after a seeming recovery, since this was sometimes just the prelude to a more serious bacterial infection.
An organization as large as the Public Health Service might not be entirely compromised by bad leadership. While the failures of the Public Health Service might seem to contradict Barry’s argument about the importance of institutions, the PHS still did some good, suggesting that one of the benefits of strong institutions is that sometimes they even work under bad leadership.
Themes
Meanwhile Avery, Cole, and others from the Rockefeller Institute developed a vaccine that showed promising early results based on a test at Camp Upton. They also had a serum that decreased mortality for Type I and Type II pneumococcus, and other investigators had developed vaccines and serums as well. Still, even with these resources, the lack of doctors remained one of the biggest problems.
The earlier failures and false starts of research have begun to culminate in modest successes. This passage shows how previous “failures” actually may not have been failures but simply stepping-stones to the next stage of the investigative process.
Themes
The government started a program to target younger female doctors and those with physical disabilities, hoping to find the best doctors not subject to the draft. The plan collapsed, however, since doctors were needed everywhere and couldn’t be spared—and on top of that, the government offered few resources and a poor salary.
Again, leadership in the U.S. tried to implement a compromise solution and it proved ineffective. In this case, recruiting new doctors from untapped sources could have been an effective idea, but the lack of resources for the program doomed it to be ineffective from the start.
Themes
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Nurses proved even harder to find than doctors. Though a military drive to recruit nurses was somewhat successful, it left many hospitals around the country severely short-staffed. One Red Cross recruiter wrote “There will be no nurses left in civil life if we continue at this rate” on September 5, just a few days before the big Camp Devens outbreak.
Staffing shortages during the 1918 pandemic presented a difficult problem, because the shortages were for skilled positions. Perhaps the lesson was that there is no good solution under circumstances like this, showing all the more that preventative measures are critical.
Themes
