Customer Reviews

Fever of War: The Influenza Epidemic in the U.S. Army during World War I

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I never cared a whit about military history until I read this book. The way that the history of medicine and the history of war are so intertwined added great depth to the story. I started it just wanting to learn more about the Spanish Flu, but finished it wanting to read more about the history of medicine and the military.

In the five recognized wars that the United States fought in the twentieth century (WW I, WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Persian Gulf) the country suffered some 440,000 killed in action. In 1918, 675,000 Americans died of the flu. In all, the flu killed some 50,000,000 peopleapproximately the same number killed in World War II (no one knows exactly how many in either the flu or WW II).

In 1918 the medical profession was confident that they understood how disease was spread. In 1878 Louis Pasteur had published his breakthrough book "Germ Theory and Its Applications to Medicine and Surgery." (Note that the publication date is well after the American Civil War where the doctors knew nothing about germs. This book is available free from www.books-on-line.com.) While this was not immediately accepted by the medical profession, by 1918 it was understood, accepted and tought in medical school.

Unfortunately flu is not caused by germs but a virus, and in 1918 they knew nothing of viruses. And it wasn't until World War II that penicillin, the first effective anti-bacterial was discovered. While this wouldn't have stopped a virus, it is likely that it would have stopped the pneumonia that followed the virus and was the actual killer of most people.

Can it happen again? Yes! AIDS infects about 36 million people and is now killing them at about a million people a year. And both of these numbers are increasing.

This is a powerful book that covers an area of history that it seems was almost deliberately covered up by the Government, the media, and the historians. Highly recommended.