The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history
Posted by admin | Posted in Infectious Disease | Posted on 27-08-2010
5
- ISBN13: 9780143036494
- Condition: New
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Product Description
At the height of WWI, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease. Magisterial in its breadth of perspective and depth of research and now revised to reflect the growing danger of the avian flu, The Great Influenza is ultimately a tale of triumph amid tragedy, which provides us with a precise and sobering model as we confront the epidemics looming on our own horizon. John M. Barry has written a new afterword for this edition that brings us up to speed on the terrible threat of the avian flu and suggest ways in which we might head off another flu pandemic.
The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history
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It is unfortunate that the awesome power of vitamin C to fight infectious diseases — including influenza and the common cold — was not known in 1918. Many thousands of lives could have been saved if vitamin C had been readily available as it is now.
Unfortunately, the power of vitamin C to fight influenza is still not acknowledged by the orthodox medical establishment, even though numerous published scientific studies have shown vitamin C, at adequate doses, to be very powerful at killing viruses and, thus, protecting us from their ill effects. One reason for this misunderstanding is that the orthodox medical establishment considers only about 90 mg of vitamin C daily to be needed by humans, and this dosage will not fight influenza. However, the actual dosage of vitamin C most humans need is at least 2,000 mg each day under normal conditions and much higher amounts when an infection starts to occur.
For those who are willing to consider the benefits of vitamin C and other nutrients in fighting illness, I recommend the book How to Feel Better and Live Longer by Dr. Linus Pauling, the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes.
Rating: 4 / 5
Not near enough information about what a consumer could or should do to help themselves. I didn’t realize this was a puff piece for the medical profession.
Rating: 2 / 5
Well written and well researched. The book reads like a thriller. It documents the beginnings of the pandemic, the state of medicine and research at the time and the societal, medical and political responses to the threat.
Extremely informative with a currency that doesn’t fade with time.
Rating: 2 / 5
The one thing that is false in this book even though it claims to have a lot of facts, is that it says the influenza caused panic among the citizens. In fact, it didn’t cause “panic.” If you can imagine that in 1918 there was little communication between cities and people were dying but other cities didn’t even know about it until months later.
If you were to read A Bird Named Enza by Dawn Meier you would find out that not only was there no panic but people were marvelous heroes and didn’t run into the streets or commit suicide, but tried to help one another in a situation that was completely foreign to each citizen.
Don’t read this book as fact, it is just like a lot of other books in that it is gleaming a bunch of “facts” and saying it is true.
A Bird Named Enza is a first-hand account of someone who lived through the influenza. Not a bunch of historical “facts” from some library.
A BIRD NAMED ENZA
Rating: 1 / 5
If I were sick, it would be an explanation as to why I bought this piece of crap!
If I had wanted a history lesson on all of the doctors of the 15th century through today, I’d have looked for one to buy. This is a boring and complicated read about early times in medicine period.
I’m over 1/4 way through this horrible book and have not even gotten to any flu issues yet. This is so boring, that I’ve resulted to speed reading just to get through it. What a waste of money! If I could have given it 1/2 star or none, I’d have done so.
DO NOT BUY IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT THE FLU EPIDEMIC OF 1917.
Rating: 1 / 5