The Great Influenza (78 page)

one hundred children orphaned:
'Report of Lake Division,' Aug. 12, 1919, RG 200, NA.

orphaned two hundred children: JAMA
71, no. 18 (Nov. 2, 1918), 1500.

'havoc is wide spread':
General manager to division managers, March 1, 1919, RG 200, NA.

'What bones are they':
Quoted in Pettit, 'A Cruel Wind,' 173.

'how sick the world is':
John Dewey,
New Republic
(Jan. 1923), quoted in Dewey,
Characters and Events: Popular Essays in Social and Political Philosophy,
v. 2 (1929), 760-61.

'all faiths in man shaken':
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
This Side of Paradise
(1920), 304.

'a motivating force in four books':
William Maxwell, 'A Time to Mourn,'
Pen America
(2002), 122-23, 130.

'almost nothing in literature':
Personal communication from Donald Schueler, July 5, 2003.

'an epidemic of discreet, infectious fear':
Christopher Isherwood,
Berlin Stories
(New York: New Directions, 1951), 181.

'foreign settlements of the city': Rocky Mountain News,
Oct. 31, 1918, quoted in Stephen Leonard, 'The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in Denver and Colorado,'
Essays and Monographs in Colorado History
(1989), 7-8.

'negligence and disobedience': Durango Evening Herald,
Nov. 26, 1918, quoted in Leonard, '1918 Influenza Epidemic in Denver and Colorado,' 7.

'penalty for filth is death':
Shelley Watts to Fieser, Nov. 13, 1918, RG 200, NA.

may have reached 20 million:
Kingsley Davis,
The Population of India and Pakistan
(1951), 36, cited in and see also I. D. Mills, 'The 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic (The Indian Experience' (1986), 1-40, passim.

'in the order of 50 million':
Niall Johnson and Juergen Mueller, 'Updating the Accounts: Global Mortality of the 1918-1920 'Spanish' Influenza Pandemic,'
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
(spring 2002), 105-15, passim.

as many as 100 million:
Ibid.

those aged twenty-one to thirty:
Virtually all studies showed similar results. See, for example, Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 21.

most conservative estimate:
Ibid., 165.

Part X: Endgame

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

'The appointment of Dr. Opie':
Winslow to Wade Frost, Feb. 1, 1930, Winslow papers, SLY.

'Jordan seems at first':
Winslow to Frost, Jan. 16, 1930, Winslow papers.

'distinctly prefer Emerson':
Frost to Winslow, Jan. 20, 1930, Winslow papers.

'the Black Death':
Quoted in Michael Levin, 'An Historical Account of the Influence,'
Maryland State Medical Journal
(May 1978), 61.

'we were so helpless':
Transcript of Influenza Commission minutes, Oct. 30, 1918, Winslow papers.

precise epidemiological investigations:
'Association Committee Notes on Statistical Study of the 1918 Epidemic of So-called Influenza' presented at American Public Health Association meeting, Dec. 11, 1918, entry 10, file 1622, RG 90, NA.

'an opportunity to show':
Ibid.

'ultimately in the laboratory':
Transcript of Influenza Commission minutes, Feb. 4, 1919, Winslow papers.

isolated for seven days:
George Soper, M.D., 'Epidemic After Wars,'
JAMA
(April 5, 1919), 988.

'every effort to collect':
Russell to Flexner, Nov. 25, 1918, Flexner papers, APS.

'this business off our hands':
Quoted in Dorothy Ann Pettit, 'A Cruel Wind: America Experiences the Pandemic of Influenza, 1918-1920, A Social History' (1976), 229.

two units of seasoned troops:
Maj. General Merritt W. Ireland, ed.,
Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War,
v. 9,
Communicable Diseases
(1928), 127-29.

'cyclic variation in air pressure':
David Thomson and Robert Thomson,
Annals of the Pickett-Thomson Research Laboratory,
v. 9,
Influenza
(1934), 259.

'the outstanding objective':
F. M. Burnet, 'Portraits of Viruses: Influenza Virus A,'
Intervirology
(1979), 201.

'humiliating but true':
Comments by Welch on influenza bacillus paper, undated, file 17, box 109, WP.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

'the specific inciting agent':
Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 499.

'blood agar plates':
Capt. Edwin Hirsch to SG, Oct. 7, 1919, entry 31D, RG 112.

'investigation of the bacteriologic methods':
J. Wheeler Smith Jr. to Callender, Feb. 20, 1919, entry 31D, RG 112, NA.

They found the bacteria everywhere:
Maj. General Merritt W. Ireland, ed.,
Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War,
v. 12,
Pathology of the Acute Respiratory Diseases, and of Gas Gangrene Following War Wounds
(1929), 180-81.

'in every case':
Ibid., 58.

'absence of influenza bacilli':
Ibid., 140.

'were not discovered':
Ibid., 144.

'other respiratory diseases':
Ireland,
Communicable Diseases,
62.

only five of sixty-two cases:
Edwin O. Jordan,
Epidemic Influenza
(1927), 393.

'the most slipshod manner':
Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 512.

'found in nearly every case':
William H. Park, 'Anti-influenza Vaccine as Prophylactic,'
New York Medical Journal
(Oct. 12, 1918), 621.

'ten different strains':
Park comments, transcript of Influenza Commission minutes, Dec. 20, 1918, Winslow papers.

'important secondary invaders':
Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 498.

'evidence points to a filterable virus':
Carton 1, chapter 22, p. 24, Anna Wessel Williams papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College.

'not recognizable by our microscopic methods':
William MacCallum, 'Pathological Anatomy of Pneumonia Following Influenza,'
Johns Hopkins Hospital Reports
(1921), 149-51.

failed to infect:
Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 603-8.

claimed success for three:
Charles Nicolle and Charles LeBailly, 'Recherches experimentales sur la grippe,'
Annales de l'Institut Pasteur
(1919), 395-402, translated for the author by Eric Barry.

'jumped to the conclusion':
Saul Benison,
Tom Rivers: Reflections on a Life in Medicine and Science, An Oral History Memoir
(1967), 59.

Fleming found:
Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 287, 291, 497.

'reducing the resistance':
Welch comments, USPHS Conference on Influenza, Jan. 10, 1929, box 116, file 11, WP. Conference itself reported in
Public Health Reports
44, no. 122.

'the best claim to serious consideration':
Thomson and Thomson,
Influenza,
v. 9, 512.

'scientific problems were almost forced on him':
René Dubos,
The Professor, the Institute and DNA
(1976), 174.

'not as broad':
Ibid., 74.

'narrow range of techniques':
Dubos, 'Oswald Theodore Avery, 1877-1955,'
Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
(1956), 40.

''the whole secret' in this little vial'':
Michael Heidelberger, oral history, 70, NLM.

'extreme precision and elegance':
Dubos,
Professor, Institute and DNA,
173.

'never published a joint paper':
Ibid., 82.

'digging a deep hole':
Ibid., 175.

'fundamental to biology':
Heidelberger, oral history, 129.

'what more do you want':
Dubos,
Professor, Institute and DNA,
143.

'likened to a gene':
Oswald Avery, Colin McLeod, and Maclyn McCarty, 'Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pneumococcal Types,'
Journal of Experimental Medicine
(Feb. 1, 1944, reprinted Feb. 1979), 297-326.

'little influence on thought':
Gunther Stent, Introduction,
The Double Helix: A Norton Critical Edition
by James Watson (1980), xiv.

'obviously of fundamental importance':
Nobelstiftelsen,
Nobel, the Man, and his Prizes
(1962), 281.

'Avery showed':
James Watson,
The Double Helix: A Norton Critical Edition,
See 12, 13, 18.

'Avery gave us':
Horace Judson,
Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the Revolution in Biology
(1979), 94.

'we were very attentive':
Ibid., 59.

'nonsense to say that we were not aware':
Ibid., 62-63.

'dark ages of DNA':
Watson,
Double Helix,
219.

'opening' the field of molecular biology':
Dubos,
Professor, Institute and DNA,
156.

'keeping his own counsel':
Ibid., 164.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

solid evidence:
Transcript of Influenza Commission minutes, first session, Oct. 30, 1918; second session, Nov. 22, 1918; fourth session, Feb. 14, 1919, Winslow papers.

'Lewis's mind working, the depth of it':
Interview with Dr. David Aronson, Jan. 31, 2002, and April 8, 2003.

'disinfectant power of light':
Lewis to Flexner, Nov. 29, 1916, Flexner papers, APS.

'interesting and important':
Flexner to Lewis, Jan. 29, 1919, Flexner papers, APS.

'I do not thrive on routine':
Lewis to Flexner, April 21, 1921, Flexner papers, APS.

'All I have heard':
Flexner to Lewis, April 22, 1921, Flexner papers, APS.

'your new honor':
Flexner to Lewis, Jan. 21, 1921, Flexner papers, APS.

'let me take a little trouble for you':
Flexner to Lewis, Dec. 21, 1921, Flexner papers, APS.

''father' to me':
Lewis to Flexner, Sept. 8, 1924, Flexner papers, APS.

'you may well feel gratified':
Flexner to Lewis, Jan. 26, 1923, Flexner papers, APS.

'rehabilitation of a' mind':
Lewis to Flexner, Jan. 20, 1923, Flexner papers, APS.

'to go to work again':
Lewis to Flexner, Jan. 24, 1923, Lewis papers, RUA.

'I shall be rejoiced':
Flexner to Lewis, undated response to Lewis's Jan. 20, 1923, letter, Flexner papers, APS.

'to deserve your confidence':
Lewis to Flexner, Jan. 24, 1923, Lewis to Flexner, Jan. 30, 1923, Lewis papers, RUA.

'free of any entanglement':
Lewis to Flexner, June 26, 1924, Lewis papers, RUA.

'the first chance to make a second center':
Flexner to Lewis, summer 1924 (probably late June or July), Lewis papers, RUA.

'I am secure':
Lewis to Flexner, Sept. 8, 1924, Lewis papers, RUA.

'one of the finest investigators':
Benison,
Tom Rivers,
341, 344.

understanding of the immune system:
'Scientific Reports of the Corporation and Board of Scientific Directors' (1927-28), RUA, 345-47; see also George A. Corner,
A History of the Rockefeller Institute: 1901-1953 Origins and Growth
(1964), 296.

'aiming higher than his training':
Smith to Flexner, Nov. 2, 1925, Lewis papers, RUA.

diet of the guinea pigs:
Lewis and Shope, 'Scientific Reports of the Corporation' (1925-26), 265, RUA.

'no change in my line of work':
Ibid.

'doubt expressed about your future':
Flexner to Lewis, draft letter, Dec. 1, 1925, Lewis papers, RUA.

'unequivocably opposed':
Flexner to Lewis, Dec. 1, 1925, Lewis papers, RUA.

'have not been very productive':
Lewis to Flexner, Aug. 4, 1927, Lewis papers, RUA.

'rather barren subject':
Flexner to Lewis, Sept. 22, 1927, Lewis papers, RUA.

'this diagnosis in pigs':
Richard Collier,
The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919
(1974), 55; W. I. B. Beveridge,
Influenza: The Last Great Plague: An Unfinished Story of Discovery
(1977), 4; J. S. Koen, 'A Practical Method for Field Diagnosis of Swine Diseases,'
Journal of Veterinary Medicine
(1919), 468-70.

filtered the mucus:
M. Dorset, C. McBryde, and W. B. Niles,
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
(1922-23), 62, 162.

'our future Lewis problem':
Flexner to Smith, phone message, June 21, 1928, Lewis papers, RUA.

he could still be master:
Flexner to Smith, June 20, 1928, Lewis papers, RUA.

'in all kindness':
Flexner to Smith, June 22, 1928, Lewis papers, RUA.

'not essentially' investigator type':
Flexner to Smith, June 29, 1928, Lewis papers, RUA.

double the median income:
Paul Starr,
The Social Transformation of American Medicine
(1982), 142.

'no doubt as to the risk':
Flexner to Smith, June 29, 1928, Lewis papers, RUA.