The Devil's Flu

The Devil's Flu: The World's Deadliest Influenza Epidemic and the Scientific Hunt for the Virus That Caused It Paperback – October 15, 2000

Author: Pete Davies | Language: English | ISBN: 0805066225 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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The Devil's Flu: The World's Deadliest Influenza Epidemic and the Scientific Hunt for the Virus That Caused It – October 15, 2000
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From Library Journal

Originally published in England in 1999 as Catching Cold, this edition has the bad luck of competing with two similar American publications, Lynette Iezzoni's Influenza 1918: The Worst Epidemic in American History (LJ 6/15/99) and Gina Kolata's Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It (LJ 11/15/99). Davies, who has written on subjects as diverse as hurricanes, British politics, and soccer, here covers much the same territory as Kolata. He recounts the horrors of the worldwide 1918 epidemic; the efforts at identifying the virus strain, which led to the exhumation of long-frozen corpses in Alaska and Norway; and the 1997 outbreak of a deadly flu mutation in Hong Kong in which 1.6 million chickens and other birds were sacrificed to avert what seemed to be an emerging epidemic. Although Davies writes with the flair of a talented journalist, Kolata, science reporter for the New York Times, is more authoritative, while Iezzoni focuses primarily on the American influenza story. Libraries that have purchased Kolata's book will find The Devil's Flu an optional purchase.AKathy Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida, St. Petersburg
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Davies' book, published in Britain last year as Catching Cold , doesn't mention Gina Kolata's Flu [BKL N 1 99], though it covers much of the same ground, albeit differently. Davies devotes substantial space to Kirsty Duncan's expedition to Spitsbergen in 1998 to dig up the coffins of seven miners, victims of the 1918 flu, to see whether the virus was still present in them. Davies was on hand for much of the subsequent scientific failure and stonewalling. His descriptions of Duncan, John Oxford, and the other expedition members enliven his book in a way that Kolata's later interviews in the U.S and Europe don't quite match. Both authors cover the swine flu debacle in 1976, the 1998 Hong Kong flu, and such major players as Taubenberger, Hultin, Webster, and Laver. Both discuss work on vaccines and the possibilities of a successful one, and both agree that another flu pandemic is in the wings. Given the fame of their topic, many libraries will have no trouble accommodating both books. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Books with free ebook downloads available The Devil's Flu: The World's Deadliest Influenza Epidemic and the Scientific Hunt for the Virus That Caused It Paperback – October 15, 2000

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; 1st edition (October 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805066225
• ISBN-13: 978-0805066227
• Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 5.4 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,137,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

While researching FINAL EPIDEMIC, my novel of the re-emergence of the Spanish Flu of 1918,I was fortunate enough to have one of the epidemeologists I used as a source send me Pete Davies' book in its original British title (it was issued in 1999 in England under the title: "Catching Cold.")
Then as now, the depth of Davies' own research into both the history and the contemporary study of the H1N1 killer flu virus is as impressive as it is extensive. THE DEVIL'S FLU ranks with the best of medical non-fiction narrative on this unfortunately again-timely subject.
A startling fact about the original 1918 plague that devastated humanity --notable, since it occurred within the lifespan of many still alive today-- is the collective amnesia that so often surrounds that event.

Few Americans realize that it's extremely probable that they have a family member only a generation or two ago who fell prey to the deadly Spanish Flu pandemic; tales of when the cry "bring out your dead!" echoed along American streets were seldom passed from those who witnessed it to those of us who descended from the survivors. It takes a trip to virtually any cemetery to bring the death toll home to us, as marker after marker identifies the victims of the 1918 flu pandemic. Worldwide, deaths in 1918-1919 totalled at least 40 million humans, and very likely as many as 100 million-- all within a timespan measured in months.

As I write this, an avian influenza virus not unlike that which triggered the 1918 pandemic, if forcing the mass slaughter of chickens and other birds throughout Asia.

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