Previous
Chapter 6
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
It isn’t possible to prove beyond doubt that the 1918 influenza pandemic originated in Haskell County, Kansas—it might have originated as far away as France or China. But Camp Funston seems to have been the first major U.S. outbreak, and it would therefore make sense that the epidemic in Haskell was related.
Good science often involves acknowledging that absolute certainty is impossible. Barry indicates that he is telling a story that the best available evidence seems to support, but like the scientists he is profiling, he acknowledges that sometimes there simply isn’t enough evidence to make definitive statements.
Themes
Unlike bacteria, viruses are not alive, and many have wondered why they even exist. The most widely accepted theory is that viruses began as complex living cells and devolved into something simpler. A virus’s only function is to replicate itself, but it can only do so by invading cells from organisms.
Like the weather or tectonic plates, viruses are not quite alive, yet they act with a complexity that makes them similar to living things. This is an important point, since Barry often frames the story of the 1918 pandemic as one of science (and humanity) vs. nature.
Themes
Most organisms have genes stretched out in DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), but viruses encode their genes in RNA (ribonucleic acid), which is simpler. Genes are basically just “software” that tell a cell what to do. When a virus invades a cell, it forces its own genes into it, so that the cell begins making new viruses. Despite their simplicity of purpose, viruses also have an elegant complexity to them. Their specific form allows them to bind to specific parts of the DNA.
Because a virus was at the center of the 1918 influenza pandemic, it is important to have a basic understanding of how viruses work. The contrast between the seeming simplicity of viruses compared to their elegant complexity shows how many things in nature are made up of simple building blocks, yet have complex functions.
Themes
There are three types of influenza viruses: A, B, and C. C rarely affects humans, B can cause disease but not epidemics, and A is the type behind epidemics and pandemics. Most influenzas originate in animals like birds, and even if they infect a person, they can’t spread person to person. However, in rare cases, sometimes a new influenza variant does adapt to humans, and this can cause a pandemic.
Part of the reason why Barry includes this context about the influenza virus is that it is still relevant to public health today. Even before COVID-19, there was widespread concern among epidemiologists about what would happen when an animal-borne virus adapted to humans, and Barry wanted public health officials to take this threat seriously.
Themes
Get the entire The Great Influenza LitChart as a printable PDF.
Pandemics typically happen in waves, and when all the waves are combined, the morbidity (the number of people who get sick) is often over 50 percent. While influenza is sometimes lumped together with coronaviruses, parainfluenza viruses, and some other seasonal viruses as “the flu,” influenza is a specific disease and not just a bad cold. It directly attacks the respiratory system, with the other symptoms like muscle aches and headaches being an indirect consequence. When influenza penetrates deep into the lungs, it can have serious complications.
In common speech, there is often little need to distinguish between “the flu” or simply a bad cold, since the results are functionally the same. For a scientist, however, small differences like this are of vital importance to research. While Barry doesn’t use language as technical as what a scientist might use, he introduces finer distinctions in language in order to show how and why scientists use such detailed systems of classification.
Themes
Even mild strains of influenza often kill, simply because of how widespread the outbreaks are. Even without an epidemic, influenza kills 3,000 to 56,000 Americans a year. Throughout history there have typically been several influenza pandemics per century.
Though the influenza pandemic of 1918 was exceptional, in many ways it was just a more extreme version of something that was always happening. In consequence, the lessons from the influenza pandemic don’t just apply to crisis situations but even to everyday life.
Themes
Because influenza is an RNA virus like HIV and coronavirus, it can mutate very quickly. When it infects a cell and causes new viruses to burst out, 99 percent of those new viruses are so mutated that they are too defective to infect another cell. Still, because one cell can produce 100,000 to 1,000,000 new viruses, there are plenty of new viruses that can infect new cells. This is how a drug-resisting mutation can emerge in a few days.
The numbers provided here demonstrate both how rare it is that viruses successfully mutate, but also how viruses are so plentiful that successful mutations are virtually guaranteed to happen at some point. Understanding these issues of scale and probability are crucial to understanding a pandemic.
Themes
