Read & Loved (5 of 5 stars)

The Great Influenza

John M. Barry

Viking - 461 pp.

The Great Influenza is Barry's fifth book and reading this masterful history of the Influenza outbreak of 1918 makes me want to read the other four right away. This magnum opus traces the history of medical science to the post-Civil War period in America and Europe.

It is shocking to learn that as late as 1869, the President of Harvard University and the faculty of the Medical School there were arguing over whether or not to require WRITTEN EXAMS!

Professor of Surgery Henry Bigelow protested to the Harvard Board of Overseers, "[he] actually proposes to have written examinations for the degree of doctor of medicine. I had to tell him that he knew nothing about the quality of Harvard medical students. More than half of them can barely write. Of course they can't pass written examinations....."

Several short decades later America and the world would face the dual scourge of World War and disease. This book is non-fiction history, but it reads like a murder mystery. Hat's off to Barry.