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Paul Lewis was a former Navy commander and pathologist best known for his work with the Rockefeller Institute. His work with Simon Flexner, Richard Shope, and others played an essential role in helping scientists to understand the influenza epidemic of 1918. Lewis and his peers were particularly influential because the epidemic came during a time that is now recognized as the beginning of modern medicine, and the medical knowledge that came out of the 1918 pandemic continues to be relevant even today. Lewis could be shy in person and never married, but he was particularly known for his skill as a leader and his dedication to the laboratory. During the 1918 influenza pandemic, he spent long hours in his laboratory, hoping to identify the pathogen causing the pandemic, which could help in the creation of a vaccine or cure. Eventually, he helped develop a serum to cure the disease based on Pfeiffer’s B. influenzae. Though it turned out that B. influenzae was only present in some cases, the serum was perhaps the first developed during the pandemic to have a positive effect. After the pandemic, Lewis struggled to produce results in his research and publish meaningful new papers. Eventually, he volunteered to go abroad to Brazil to study yellow fever (since a previous investigator had died in the attempt). Lewis himself, however, soon caught yellow fever, and he died in Brazil in 1929. Lewis was one of the most prominent research scientists during the influenza epidemic, and his life’s work shows both the successes and the setbacks that defined early modern medicine’s first attempt to combat a pandemic. He represents the value of science, as well as its limitations.
Paul Lewis Quotes in The Great Influenza
The The Great Influenza quotes below are all either spoken by Paul Lewis or refer to Paul Lewis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Prologue
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The Great War had brought Paul Lewis into the navy in 1918 as a lieutenant commander, but he never seemed quite at ease when in his uniform. It never fit quite right, or to sit quite right, and he was often flustered and failed to respond properly when sailors saluted him.
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Chapter 16
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As the virus moved, two parallel struggles emerged.
One encompassed all the nation. Within each city, within each factory, within each family, into each store, onto each farm, along the length of the track of the railroads, along the rivers and roads, deep into the bowels of mines and high along the ridges of the mountains, the virus would find its way. In the next weeks, the virus would test society as a whole and each element within it. Society would have to gather itself to meet this test, or collapse.
The other struggle lay within one tight community of scientists. They—men like Welch, Flexner, Cole, Avery, Lewis, Rosenau—had been drafted against their will into a race.
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Chapter 23
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Lewis knew full well that little of what he was doing was good science. It was all, or nearly all, based on informed guesswork. He only worked harder.
As he worked, the society about him teetered on the edge of collapse.
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Chapter 35
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The greatest questions remained the simplest ones: What caused influenza? What was the pathogen? Was Pfeiffer right when he identified a cause and named it Bacillus influenzae? And if he was not right, then what did cause it? What was the killer?
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Paul Lewis Quotes in The Great Influenza
The The Great Influenza quotes below are all either spoken by Paul Lewis or refer to Paul Lewis. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue
Quotes
The Great War had brought Paul Lewis into the navy in 1918 as a lieutenant commander, but he never seemed quite at ease when in his uniform. It never fit quite right, or to sit quite right, and he was often flustered and failed to respond properly when sailors saluted him.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16
Quotes
As the virus moved, two parallel struggles emerged.
One encompassed all the nation. Within each city, within each factory, within each family, into each store, onto each farm, along the length of the track of the railroads, along the rivers and roads, deep into the bowels of mines and high along the ridges of the mountains, the virus would find its way. In the next weeks, the virus would test society as a whole and each element within it. Society would have to gather itself to meet this test, or collapse.
The other struggle lay within one tight community of scientists. They—men like Welch, Flexner, Cole, Avery, Lewis, Rosenau—had been drafted against their will into a race.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23
Quotes
Lewis knew full well that little of what he was doing was good science. It was all, or nearly all, based on informed guesswork. He only worked harder.
As he worked, the society about him teetered on the edge of collapse.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 35
Quotes
The greatest questions remained the simplest ones: What caused influenza? What was the pathogen? Was Pfeiffer right when he identified a cause and named it Bacillus influenzae? And if he was not right, then what did cause it? What was the killer?
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