Untimely reading

[ladyofastolat]

A few weeks ago, I read a very interesting book about the 1918 flu pandemic. At about the same time, I also read one about the Black Death, and did quite a lot of online reading about cholera epidemics, typhus on battlefields, and malaria in Britain.

I'm kind of wishing I hadn't done so now.

Comments

[westerling.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just read a book about the 1918 flu pandemic. Weird. That's not my usual reading material, but it was picked by somebody else.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I've always been far too interested for my own good in the history of epidemics, and novels in which killer diseases wipe out the world. They tend to give me bad dreams afterwards, but I keep returning to them.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

My grandmother lost her mother in the 1918 flu epidemic. She was 6 years old; the thing she mainly remembered was being frightened by the nodding black feather plumes on the big black horses pulling the hearse.

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

Two things we have we didn't have in 1918 (well, a lot of things, but these are the ones that strike me): near-instantaneous global information, and penicillin.

How much help these will be, I do not know. I don't even play a doctor on TV.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I heard a man who is at least in a position to be called in as rentaquote expert on Radio 4 saying the same thing, and adding in tones of some exasperation that having a generally well fed and healthy population also helps.

I am, however, disturbed by the idea suggested by ladyofastolat's post that current events are somehow being dictated by her reading material. This could have some very unexpected results!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Well, I've also been rereading quite a few DWJ novels in the last week: Fire and Hemlock, Hexwood, A Tale of Time City and Archer's Goon. So keep an eye on the news over the next few days, and see what happens.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Penicillin only works against bacteria, doesn't it, but, yes, we have much better medical care and drugs. The information thing is interesting, too. Partly because of war-time reporting restrictions, most newspapers in 1918 barely mentioned the flu, so sometimes people who were feeling awful just carried on with their lives, going out and infecting people, not realising that there was a deadly pandemic happening.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I understand that it is not usually the 'flu' itself that kills you but the secondary (and tertiary) infections, and those are often bacterial. So penicillin should be a significant help.

[chainmailmaiden]

We do have access to better drugs and medical care now and the ability to share information globally can help keep people up to date, it's going to be the sheer amount of travel that goes on now that is going to be the main problem. Instead of diseases taking months to spread, they now take days making containment far harder.

[louis-soul.livejournal.com]

Well right now they shut down the Mexican border because of the flu epidemic here in North America. It's not surprising to find people reading about flu etc...
We'll watch and see what the global effects could be.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

There are cases here in the UK, though all apparently under control so far, and all in people who've recently been to Mexico.

[louis-soul.livejournal.com]

The media seems to only report the death tolls here, rather than what's under control.
Though the flu seems to be only one of the things people are worried about. The President is out fopping everywhere, leaving others to run things and fix the problems he's causing.
He and his family are "conveniently" out of the country during this flu wave.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

As the US can't stop illegal aliens coming in from Mexico at the best of times, I will be interested to see how well they can enforce this.

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was something that I was wondering about...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I had to read far too much about bird flu in my last job :-(

OT: The strangest thing about my new job is not having to think about every damn' thing going - actuarial or management. That's what you get for going from a company of nine employees to one of many thousands.