The Great Influenza (85 page)

4. A dense jungle-like growth of epithelial cells covers a healthy mouse trachea.

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5. Only seventy-two hours after infection the influenza virus transforms the same area into a barren and lifeless desert. White blood cells are patrolling the area, too late.

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6. The virus swept first through military bases, where men were jammed together despite the objections of Welch and Army Surgeon General William Gorgas. This is an army emergency hospital, probably a ward for convalescents.

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7. Army Surgeon General William Gorgas was determined that this would be the first war in which fewer American soldiers died of disease than from combat.

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8. Rupert Blue, the civilian surgeon general and head of the U.S. Public Health Service, was a master bureaucrat but failed to heed warnings of, seek advance information about, or prepare for the epidemic.

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9. Massachusetts was the first state to suffer huge numbers of civilian deaths. This is a hospital in Lawrence.

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10. I n Philadelphia the number of dead quickly overwhelmed the city's ability to handle bodies. It was forced to bury people, without coffins, in mass graves and soon began using steam shovels to dig the graves.

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Posters and handouts spread warnings and advice. They also spread terror.

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13. The two messages in this photograph (the policeman's protective mask and patriotism (epitomized a conflict of interest in public officials.

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14. All New York City workers wore masks. Note the absence of traffic on the street and pedestrians on the sidewalk. The same silent streets were seen everywhere. In Philadelphia a doctor said, 'The life of the city had almost stopped.'

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15. Oswald T. Avery as a private, when the Rockefeller Institute became Army Auxiliary Laboratory Number One.

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