Transcripts For CSPAN3 Influenza Pandemic World War I 20240713

Missouri, hosted this talk as part of their annual symposium. I do believe that that is my cue to head over to this ourction and give introduction for the next speaker. Beforewould like to say that, here is a little Public Service announcement, stealing person,e from another there is only one thing you can war andom the world that thing would be, dont forget to get your flu shot. Maybe it means you get to june ash enjoy even heart this evenings dinner. Im so pleased to our next speaker, dr. Nancy bristow existing list professor in history at the university of puget sound where she specializes in 20th century American History with an emphasis on race, gender and social change and serves on the Leadership Team of the race and pedagogy institute. Makingthe author of 1996 this world for it social engineering in the great war. And american pandemic, a lost worlds of the 1918 influenza she willwhos content be addressing this afternoon. You might have seen her on the american experience, most recent research will be published and steeped in the blood of racism, black power, law order and the 1970 shooting at Jackson State College that will be coming out in may of 2020 by Oxford University press. This veryt more about pressing issue, ladies and gentlemen put your hands together and welcome dr. Bristow to the stage. [applause] dr. Bristow it is an absolute pleasure to be here, i am so grateful to the museum, to laura, to all of you from the tech people for making this stupendous event. Before i get started today i have one favor to ask in the audience. Im skipping school today so i need to let them know i was somewhere doing something. If you could give me a smile and. Wave and say hey there ill take a few photos, that will do great awesome. Let me get to work. On june 6, 1918 in north dakota, lillians mother gave birth to a little girl. Unfortunately five months later on november 12, her mother passed away. She contracted influenza and died a few days later. In these days it wasnt proper for a man to raise his daughter alone and so lillian poss older Sister Christine was farmed out to relatives where she lived. Lillian unfortunately didnt have and she was traded from Family Member for two years. Finally she was able to settle in with relatives living in the same town as her father and got to see them regularly through childhood. Years interviewed her 85 later, she still maintains the spanish influenza wouldve killed her mother that killed her mother, change your life completely. It had to. That astoday estimate many as one third of human beings on the globe suffered from this new incarnation of influenza, incorrectly dubbed by contemporaries the spanish influenza. Striking with ferocity, the pandemic caused no fewer than 50 million deaths. Waves,tacked in four first coming through in the spring and then unfortunately coming back in a second wave it was much more deadly. , orng that second wave infection rates range between 25 and 40 and some 675,000 americans perished, more than half a million that would have died even in those days of annual flow. Mother was one of the victims. In the pandemic did not end 1918. In fact there was a third wave that came through early in the spring of 1919 and then either the first annual version of this new virus or a fourth wave came through in early 1920. You can imagine the disruption in a world that is just coming off of the great war and that is already suffered through the pandemic of the fall of 1918. , an articley though of faith among historians that this was americas forgotten pandemic. In his important landmark study of the pandemic. On one level it is certainly true. In the aftermath of the pandemic , there were few monuments built, literally a handful in the country, anniversaries pass to the memorialization and very few people spoke of it publicly. Get lillians recommend and yet lillians recommend ash recollection is merely part of the story. It is clear that people did room of the pandemic as individuals in their personal and private lives. So what i want to do today is complicate this idea of national amnesia. Heres the plan for the day. Im gonna set some context by splitting what this was, the kind of impact it was having, but then i want to turn to this issue of it being remembered in the way people remembered it as a true medic story. Then i will turn to this other part but the ways in which public were able to forget this terrible event. And talk about the process in which i happen. And then if you were marks of the cost of forgetting. Scholars continue to disagree about the origins of the pandemic. Pardon me. Maintain that it started here, that in haskell county, kansas, there was a virus that made its way into the Army Barracks and from there it would travel out and across the United States where it would then travel onto the western front. The terrible thing that happens on the western front issue of a lot of people in very difficult circumstances and a great opportunity for the virus to continue to mutate and go through genetic shift. Thats what took place. So then the pandemic would come back in late august and arrive subtly in three locations on the same day in france, in the United States and in sierra leone and africa. And this would be the third wave , it landed in boston in august and by the end of october, the entire United States would be drowning in a sea of disease from buffalo to birmingham, from dayton to los angeles. In this new incarnation of influenza was different. At first they tried to pass it off as they had been the first wave came through in the spring as this is just regular seasonal flu. But when it came back in october and september, it was clear this was something the poor only scant resemblance to the traditional. One way that it was really different was the pace at which it spread. It arrived in boston in late august on the 27th, but by the end of october it had covered the entire nation and had done the same thing worldwide. But it also struck with an unexpected silence in terms of its mortality rate. It had an infection rate generally across the United States of about 28 and you could see what this ends up meaning for u. S. Life expectancy with mortality rate morbidity of 28 , mortality rate of about 2. 5 . It was enough to lower Life Expectancy by 12 years. Weretime in which people beginning to imagine the end of Infectious Disease and seeing Life Expectancy on this upward trajectory, this is a terrible shock. Another thing that made this shocking and disruptive was who it was that was sickening and dying. Traditionally with influenza we have a u shaped mortality chart. It takes most of its victims among the very young and the very old. W. 1918 instead we have a that suggests 50 of the victims were taken from most of the prime of their lives. Pause for a minute and think about who that is, talking about young parents, School Teachers and nurses, firefighters, city council members. Talking but the people who keep a society running into keep families running. But it wasnt only this pattern of infection, the other thing that made this horrifying for people was frankly the symptoms and here i want to describe them briefly and i apologize because its not a pretty picture but we need to understand what it was people having to live through given that most people suffer through the illness at home in their caregivers were primarily family. In the beginnings it would be the flu and you know how unpleasant that can be with aches, fever, cold like symptoms. Problem washe spanish influenza. They would suddenly face instead very high fevers, disabling headaches, pain in joints and muscles that was extreme leading to physical frustration in the lungs. And for some these symptoms might pass but for others it got still worse. Delirium and unconsciousness begin to follow as the lungs filled with the immune response would create a feeling of the lungs with the bodily fluid of the patient themselves leading to a discoloration of the hands and feet and often of the face. And then often the bloody fluids would drain. Some people would get sick and die as quick as a day. Usually it was more like three or four days but some people might suffer through 10 days or even two weeks. Others face what it first appeared to be traditional influenza and what appeared to be healing and would instead face the ravages of bacterial pneumonia. Something for which a 1918 we still do not have antibiotic cures. During the worst weeks of the pandemic of course cities and towns would attempt to control the pandemic, trying to prevent its spread and keep as many people healthy as possible. Even as there tried to take care of the sick and handle the growing number of dead. Kansas city can stand as a typical story of what this process might look like in the kinds of things that were taking place. In kansas city as in most places state nationwide, influenza arrived by way of an army camp. There were two motor pools knew the city and thats where influenza first emerged. City leaders including the Public Health officials tried to calm the public which again was a very common response and suggested dont worry, civilians will be fine. Of course that was not true justice was not true everywhere else in the country. Wasate september the army completely quarantined and something with 1000 people were already down the onus. The Kansas City Department of health continue to downplay the risk until they could not any longer and in october 7 it was clear there was a Major Health Emergency taking place as they closed schools, churches, theaters and band public gatherings of any group larger than 20. That figure is important to note because you could keep some things open. You could keep saloons, dance halls as long as you didnt have more than 20 people in any given state. You could keep those open and they did. Were someely there infighting among the Public Health in kansas city so shortly after they put these restrictions in place they were removed. Of course influenza worsened and quickly they had to restore reimpose these restrictions. This made things little a little bit tighter. Business hours were shortened. All those cases were required to be quarantined instead citizens were strained under these for a full month. Hard to picture doing that today, right. Things were closed for an entire month. Unfortunately even that really wasnt long enough. They reopen the schools on november 18 but had acted too quickly and again come influenza spread. Especially among the very schoolchildren who would returned. By the end of the year, the second wave was largely passed but that didnt mean it was gone. February come morbidity skyrocketed again and in some ways people suggested this was as bad as it had been before. It was reported to be so severe that people could wake up healthy and be dead by nightfall. But no further measures were taken. The community had moved on. It would not sit for those kinds of restrictions i talked about in october. Public attention had moved on to recovery from the pandemic and to the future after the war. Pandemic came to a close and the city had suffered 11,000 influenza deaths 11,000 cases and 2300 deaths. Under the higher rates nationwide. Up to this point evan talking about influenza, spanish influenza, whats distinct and different from a pecan before. In terms of an illness, it was. In one way it was not different and its important to note this is we are thinking about the experience people went through. What did not change were sort of social and cultural norms and their shaping of americas lives over the course of the pandemic. Let me explain what i mean. In an age of strict adherence to gender roles for instance, the loss of even one parent could plunge a family into disarray. Father wasnt actually socially sanctioned to raise his own children. It was more complicated often when mothers would be surviving and the father would pass away because men were often the primary breadwinner especially for upperclass families. Incomplete economic disarray. Number of large number of children without support. In some cases the problem was solved by a transition from home to the workplace, but for the poorest families, with no financial lost wages could mean hunger or homelessness. Generally forced to rely on the charity. And there they would often run into a system of surveillance and a system of judgment that punish them for their poverty. For people of color circumstances were still more difficult. The broader poverty and segregation that they produced. Again an example to illustrate. A 14yearold contracted influenza at the school in salem, oregon. She had been placed there by her reservation in california and had had a clear physical exam when she arrived but these schools were breeding places for sickness and in the months preceding the epidemic you could see students were raised from chickenpox to tonsillitis to a stiff neck which makes you worry , problems with their feet, anothers defined pulmonary problems and stomach problems, these were unhealthy places and she contracted influenza as did many other students and it was the latest example of the sickening of the Indigenous People of the United States through the spread of disease, a long story in our history. Africanamericans face the persistence of White Supremacy and its Practical Applications in a system of segregation. Hospitals often remained barred from African Americans with their caregivers. In richmond, virginia, the city did open up a public Emergency Hospital with all the residents of richmond but theres a catch for efrin americans they can only gain treatment in the basement. A veryas city there was special place, the General Hospital number two which had been opened in 1908 and was the first hospital serving the black bymunity entirely peopled and run by africanamericans. But its also a segregated facility that was overcrowded and ill maintained. Is social identity matter during the pandemic. Change. Not in the midst of disruption, especially for those of some social power, maintaining what was done including the social hierarchies was a need for maintaining a sense of normalcy. The cost of that was severe for some. Virus y, the let me turn to the aftermath. And a bit about how this trauma lived on. I would suggest again at the level of the individual, the trauma does not suddenly dissipate but continues to frame lives perhaps in their entirety. Whats strange is how notoriously difficult it is to find resources of people writing and talking and singing about the flu as this is part of that idea of it having been forgotten as part of a public life. There are a few very rich sources that tell us the experience of those who have suffered. My personal favorite is pale horse, pale rider. I recommended is one wonderful way. She was writing as a Young Journalist the Rocky Mountains in denver, colorado when she became sick with influenza. She was sick enough that the paper would not run it but would have written her obituary. But she pulled through. And later more than a decade later she would write about what it takes just what would take place. What would take place. Novella is very biographical. , a 20uses on miranda fouryearold woman and follows her romance with a young soldier and her struggle with influenza. As she submerges maranda the onus, she reveals the fear the disease sometimes prompted. Over. Id i am in pain all she and her boyfriend wondered why they cannot save each other. When adam is taking care of miranda, we talk about desperate talk about what each was meant to do as if their death were preordained. She gives a sense of the peace and the terror, the coherence and confusion she passed through herself and perhaps warning of how painful her place in the aftermath would be, her character doesnt seem to fear death but instead find comfort in it, amazement of join its possible approach. But death is not to be hers. Depression for which influenza victims often suffered in the aftermath. Longing instead for the heaven of her dream. Her desolation ends with an ironic declaration of the probes of the future. She writes no more war, no more plague, the ceasing of the heavy streets that light tomorrow, now there will be time for everything. The novella ends with a profound sense of despair and didnt central themes that come up and other sources i was able to find. The physical cost of the pandemic for those who suffered and survived, the grief experienced by those who lost loved ones and the location so many experienced with her life shattered. Others wrote expansively about the epidemics cost, another important novel, look homeward angel. Inemiautobiographical novel which as it happened, the main character returns home from college in an emergency because his brother is dying of influenza. Detailes in unsparing about how awful it was to watch his brother and how horrific his potty desk brothers body really looked. He talks about his strangulation and found himself choked by the discomfort. Messy,th, he says its he demands from his readers to listen. Painful forno less those in the novel. Aboutks towards the end the lasting consequences would never leave. He said it would never be all right. There was no promise of writer future here, only the anguish of tragedy. They emphasize others emphasized the physical, emotional also alongside the financial meaning of the pandemic. If people peace about what happened his community when he was young. The disease was a killer. But he was effective. He writes about it being a terrible thing for a boy to see his father struggle for breath and when his father is hospitalized he says gloom descended. 1920, ifr died in victim of the epidemic long reach and learning of his fathers death, he suggested he was reeling from the news were his life and tumbled and prayed he found himself prematurely grown. At the tender age of 12, one week later, he went to work. Such a catastrophic retelling of what took place in the pandemic, it turns up in a few incidents in the popular culture. The place it turns up as in the blues. Itsnot an popular song, not in the cartoon strips. A place for you can tell this kind of story and be heard. There were a couple of examples of it. In is at the jenkins peace which she suggests many never got over it and died and people were dying everywhere. The groans of the rich was sad. It wasntn to suggest just the rich. They were all stricken. Interesting are the ways in which this was so exceptional that we dont find these kinds of examples of cultural remembering about the pandemic. Again, as i get ready to move forward on this want to say this doesnt mean people didnt remember in private. An important way i was able to learn about this was a series of questionnaires filled out by soldiers at the carlisle barracks. Again and again as i asked them to talk abut health and health care during the times of service. They routinely turned back to the pandemic. Sometimes in detail, sometimes othersanded ways, but ways aboutte lengthy the horror that they saw. That people died faster than the bodies could be taken care of. I think the idea of it was awful is perhaps the best way to think people survived thought about it took place. Memories what i want to do now is talk about how that happened and why i think that happened. One can note this is happening parallel to the end of world war i and we know americans are member the ending of world war i. Their memorials and cities around the country to the great war. Talking today in the National World war i museum the memorial, there is nothing like this thats comparable for the influenza pandemic even though it killed 10 times as many americans. I think this is a good question for historians prayed still trying to figure out the genetic makeup, they figured out the genetic makeup but they are still puzzling over where the pandemic starts for instance, a similar conundrum for people like me is whats going on that we remember the world but war perdomo the pandemic if they happen to the same time. Ive got three answers. It goes back to a point i made earlier which is the idea the culture did not change. Social norms were the same. Society wasnt different after how it had been before prayed in a sense there are markers to herald it. Probably more important our purpose today as we are thinking about world war i and its throughout the pandemic, the story fought to get on the front page with was relegated to the back page. The war always had the banner headlines. , thee example of this president of the United States, lost 600 75,000 american citizens to the disease never 675,000d the panda american citizens to the disease never mentioned the pandemic. When there was preoccupation with the american participation in the war and what needed to happen. Attention to the pandemic would draw there was worry it would draw away from the war. Pandemict fight the because it was making people sick but because it was Kaiser Wilhelms ally. We see the conflation of the pandemic with the war. Doctors and nurses are heralded as soldiers as brave as the people on the front and deaths would often be described as deaths of martyrs. Theres my third argument, that it was the wrong time for this historical moment print and it was lost as a result behind the stories of triumph you could tell about world war i. We see this clearly. Let me give you examples of how this was enacted in the culture britain when we look at public accounts, doctors and officials, nurses, we can see in the Health Care Profession at first and acknowledgment that it had taken place and then very quickly backing away and a new story about the way in which professions are on the rise, theyre doing great things, theres only opportunity in progress ahead. That wasnt hard to do at first because they did understand the pandemic. Its this historical moment nursing and being a physician divided by gender most entirely, nurses and nursing which really associated with caregiving with the importance of literally looking after the patient in making them as comfortable as possible and providing comfort. Not onlylt succeeding to be nurses but as women during the pandemic and what is amazing is how positively nurses do talk about their experiences in yearbooks and diaries, they talked again and again in the language we see here when she suggests at first they were scared but pretty quickly they realized they could do great work. The greatest comfort was the knowledge of each girl was doing her best and making good as a nurse. They knew the pandemic was horrible but they experienced it in a positive. Obviously that was harder. There was no way they could suggest they be able to contain influenza. And yet we again see this movement from at first a somewhat traumatic or tragic narrative taken places on the much more positive. He was an important man in the United States Public Health system of the time. When asked about what had taken place he said clearly we must confess that on the hall we made a dismal failure in our attempt to control the spread of influenza. But when he speaks just two years later he will tell the story differently. Theng by then he was president of the apa j and was speaking of that organization. He acknowledged the challenges ahead but mostly emphasize the a compliments in the field. We were born an opportune moment he said where it appears all time will be remarkable for its of scientific achievement. We cannot stand still and point to our past achievements. Our past leaps forward in the must confront us at this time arthritis timidly efforts a commish means in the future. Always the belief in progress. And we see this again and again in Public Health profession. It was physicians who had the hardest time returning to this triumph and storytelling of their profession. Victor was a distinguished leader of american medicine at this point serving as the head of the division of Communicable Diseases for the military community. He addressed as one of the first group to go in and investigate the disease. I thought my eyes would never see such horror as i saw there. I never had anything so depressed me in the conditions that happened at camp devens. When he wrote his memoir he said he wanted to he said im not going to make history of the influenza epidemic. ,aking tolls in the most robust sparing neither soldier nor civilian and flaunting its red flag in the face of science. Despite the disclaimer he wouldnt talk about it, when he got near the conclusion he could not help himself and returned to it. He says i see hundreds of young coming in to the wards of hospitals in groups of 10 or more placed on cots until every bed is fall and yet others crowd in. Upistressing cough brings and in the morning the dead bodies are stacked like cordwood. This would hang on my memory cells when the influenza show the inferiority of the destruction. Despite his efforts to forget, vaughn remembered and remained haunted. We dont know how many medical protect practitioners shared this sense but i did find a number of memoirs and diaries people talking about the traumatic experience for them. Something that would stay with them that they would never forget. What we also know as the public presentation of medicine by moved toby physicians a more opportunistic optimism. Immediately to off her funds for the research and promised that their work would save american lives. As influenza continue to threaten American Health in the years to come in 1920, 22, they talked about these opportunities and the chance to test hypotheses. Whats interesting is only a small number of physicians remained interested in investigating influenza. Faded quickly. Only 14there are articles. People have moved away. I think its not completely unconnected that are the same mode bent moment medicines on the rise. This dynamic, the replacement of an initial story of trauma, replacedn, concern quickly within optimistic upbeat narrative. A good place to look for this is in the new york times. Onre was a great reporter the pandemic the covered the nationwide story and kept track of the statistics weather came from Insurance Companies or the general staff of the army. From new york to board of health, he covered it. The story was very quickly diluted. Very quickly we moved from talking about people being sick to talking about how they rebuild their lives moving not just what the future but even better future. The reopening of schools and returned to work, there is optional public business. This tendency to quickly cushion the bad news with the good is very evident in something that may still run in the newspaper. When they fund raise for the needs of perhaps the least advantaged in new york society for people suffering in a range of ways. In 1918 they emphasize those who had come out of the flu pandemic and were still suffering. Whats really interesting is when they then turned back to this in the middle of 1919, they are able to tell us remarkably tramp narratives. I apologize, let me read that for you. There are three different cases. In one they suggest every member of this family had influenza after the father plus death thanks to the extensive medical care, a decided improvement has shown itself. Mention of further the fact the father is still gone. To do what we were able to give the family, they recovered quickly. Man wasconcluding this now a half this was a happy and healthy family. The reality is many families were neither happy nor healthy. The public life of the nation had moved on and people wanted a different story, a story about progress and success. So why do we care . Why are we spending this time this afternoon speaking about this . Why does it matter . Some historians say it doesnt. Suggested about our forgetting of the flu the human mind always tries to expunge the intolerance from memories. , on the greattly influenza, concurred arguing national forgetfulness may not be unusual at all. Thats our National Memory works. Its the commonality that makes it important. It is what we do but we ought to think about it. As a culture, the United States has exhibited a tendency to ignore or rewrite those parts of its past that are difficult. We know history and public memory is something that is constructed. This is something that always happens with communities and nations and any grouping. Whats important to notice is for the United States we ortinely ignore, rewrite, fail to tell the stories of slavery, the shame of we very carefully walk our way through creating a past that focuses on National Achievement in progress. Of memory ask us to ask what is at stake. If we remember one thing, what are we forgetting and thats what i want to mention briefly. Most important is the forgetting that such remembering imposes. Put simply, singular memory of the complex events keeps us from thinking deeply about the meaning of the events. When Health Care Professionals neglect to acknowledge their place in the pandemic, it sets us supper trouble later. Im not an expert on this, but there was a beautiful book written which talks about the ways in which failing to take on the realities of the pandemic helps to set up problems that would save american soldiers at the beginning of world war ii. Whichis another way in failing to remember has an impact and those of the voices that are silent but might have told us that traumatic story. The voices that wouldve told us about the treatment americans face, that might have reminded us about the kinds of losses, the shattered lives people live through. How was the sense of opportunity that ive been describing unfounded to someone whos community faced segregation or hostility or a family wrestling poverty or homelessness. How could optimism have landed on someone who just lost both their parents. As a side note, my grandfather john lost his parents at the age of 14 in 1920. They died within four days of each other. Became the man of his own household. In this case at the age of 14. Optimism found out these just drowned out these voices. We know that epidemic disease is not only a thing of the past, its also part of our future. I actually think its important for that very reason. I would argue or encourage us under just as a human being i suppose that if we face another disaster like that which raged around the world in 1918 in 1919, that we might prove prepared to admit to a tale of sorrow and loss, acknowledge the trauma that such a catastrophe leaves in its wake and perhaps to put on they understanding and listening ,ears in those words of comfort that those sufferers would need in the wake. Thank you. [applause] our microphones and are open for your questions and answer. Thank you very much. Two questions per it your research can you speak as a result of your research can you speak to any backlash towards the hispanic communities because it was called the spanish flu . And secondly can you speak to the stigma associated with the service casualties if they caught the flu rather than were shot . Great questions. Really interesting the way race operates in terms of blaming based on population. People were not making the connection to latino americans and the fact it was named spanish flu. That doesnt mean there was discrimination against the people, especially latin communities down in southern states. I have a colleague who is in the midst of writing a book on that same subject. Whats really interesting about this pandemic is the ways in which traditionally americans want to blame someone else for the flu and calling it spanish influenza helps with that. Work suggest immigrant communities were not actually targets the same way they sometimes are not of the same level at least which was a surprising finding. Your second question about the flu, thats whats really interesting is there was tremendous efforts to not stigmatize. Die of influence at camp in the United States are eulogized in the same kind of language of martyrdom and in fact nurses, doctors are often described as the armed forces and blue for the nurses. The interesting way people could see no one had control over it. It was such a powerful thing and perhaps because it was very late in the war. I didnt come into any evidence that spoke to shame or embarrassment around it. Not just in the military, but more generally this thing i was saying earlier about gender norms. When women are sick they write letters to each other and talk about how sick they are and when men are sick they write to their boss and say i will be back to work as soon as i can. Psychic is this sort of weight that male patients had to deal with that females did not. You spoke about the mortality rate being 2 , the infection rate being 20 . Did those numbers hold as you go factorshe world or did like Good Nutrition and sanitation and medical care, did that affect . Its hard to know for certain because most countries were not actually using influenza, even in the United States the figures have are kind of gases guesses to the extent officers were able to get information. Years wey clear for misunderstood how any people had died and the reason we didnt take into account whole continents that at that point didnt necessarily have a thriving Public Health administration or infrastructure to keep track of numbers. We werent counting asia or africa. If you Start Talking about how any people to we think died in india, how many do we think died in china and now the statistics estimate somewhere from 50 to 100 million with higher mortality rates in certain areas. Are soed at least for me complete the confusing, we have whole villages north of the Arctic Circle that are wiped out. Everyone dies. And then you have communities that are largely safe and there is no rhyme or reason. Thats why the work of the epidemiologist has been so interesting for us. Inside the United States it is strange in the ways being poor didnt necessarily mean you would died a higher rate but it would certainly be much less comfortable during that process but the poorest of property would create an additional as caregivers for the family and those tried to do the right thing for a sick person in their household. In your research work, did you run across any information which might lead this to have been biological warfare . Oh, no. But i did come across an entire folder of people who thought it was. In new york city. One is a german company. Ight. You got it. Hello. Others. Saw u boats off the coast. Secretary baker lots of material written for the president himself writing to the United States Public Health service suggesting all the different ways they knew it was biological warfare. But no, it seems highly unlikely or if it was it tarted here. I wanted to know about your research on segregation and medical segregation. Do have other books or sources for that . There are really, really good bucks. Why dont we meet up afterwards good bucks good books. It has been underresearched. I would maintain there are good articles, but there are no full books on race during the pandemic itself, but there are a couple that are coming. I could share them with you later. The title has changed a couple of times. There are number of very good scholars today on segregation in the Health Care System in the United States, reaching back into the air of slavery and coming all the weight to the present day. If anybody would like, i would be happy to put together a whole reading list of those. There are so many and they are really, really important work. Again, which i simply in some ways mostly borrowed from, in terms of what i was able to discover. Wonderful talk, thank you. It was fascinating and got the wheels turning. I would hate to cause further conflation of these two immense human tragedies with each other. But i cannot help thinking they are linked. Has there been any work done to take a look at the disease vectors . We know there are chinese working in france that are part of the war efforts. Japanese in the mediterranean with her navy. There are the indian regiments in the world. The great moats of the oceans that separated these things in the past. Theres as high level of movement on the oceans with military people. And if you have ever lived on a ship, even modern ships, we always talk about getting the flu on the ship. You get the blue flu. Some people think the blue flu keeps you from going on the ship, the actual blue fluids you get on the ship and at some point within the first weeks of being on the ship, you get that ships flu. I have had it for two months, for two days, for two weeks. Im wondering, what is the deal here . Has there been any scholarship on the disease vectors in relationship to all the movement of people via the sea . Theres no question. And what is interesting as there is still no agreement. Now there are people hypothesizing the virus may have had its origins in asia, which is what we traditionally expect. That is were influenza viruses often have their origins. There are scholars suggesting it started in 1916 on the western front. And again, the longstanding idea that it started in kansas, went to the western front with american troops on the trip ships. I am most included a picture with the crampton people on the ship. It with the crammed in people on the ship. But it was just so awful i chose not to include it. There people much smarter than me when it comes to epidemiology. There are Significant Research being done on that. But a lack of agreement on the origins of it. Even the smartest people at the cdc and the army pathological institute, again, folks do not know for sure. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking our presenter. [applause] we also need to thank her for xpanding your already too long waiting list. That was amazing and no, we do not. In the lecture, i want and checked the books we do not have that particular title that is now on our short list. Do check out, you may find there are other great books you might like to get during the break. I have gotten a text message urgently from our incredible Public Programs specialist, who has really done so much of the heavy lifting to make this event happen. She has made one request of all of you. Just one cookie, please. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy your break and we will see you back here promptly. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National able satellite corp. 2019] today at 4 00 on reel america the 1957 film the silent invader about a new influenza virus that emerged from asia. In metropolitan pittsburgh with approximately 1 Million People if we had this you would have approximately 200,000 people who would become ill in a four to six week period. This weekend on American History tv on cspan 3. A class on white house myths. He talked about the realities and legends. Such as the tunnel system. A alligator and Dolly Madison rescuing George Washingtons ortrait. Matthew youve probably come