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Influenza And Inequality: One Town’S Tragic Response To The Great Epidemic Of 1918, Patricia Fanning

Patricia J. Fanning

The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less than a year, including more than 500,000 in the United States. What made this pandemic even more frightening was the fact that it occurred when death rates for most common infectious diseases were diminishing. Still, an epidemic is not merely a medical crisis; it has sociological, psychological, and political dimensions as well. The influenza epidemic of 1918 was one of the worst medical disasters in human history, taking close to thirty million lives worldwide in less …