Book Review: The Jersey Brothers by Sally Mott Freeman

 

The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and 

His Family's Quest to Bring Him Home

Author: Sally Mott Freeman

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Date of Publication: May 9, 2017

Pages: 608

    

     The Jersey Brothers was selected for monthly discussion by our neighborhood non-fiction book group.  I had never heard of the book before it was selected and doubt that I ever would have stumbled upon it to read on my own.  I am glad that our group selected it, as the book is obsessively researched, tightly written, emotional in many areas, and, on top of all of that, very educational.  

     The story is about two brothers, Bill and Benny Mott, and their younger half-brother Barton Cross.  The focus is mostly on Barton who was taken prisoner by the Japanese after the fall of the Philippines.  The early part of the book relates much of Barton's upbringing and schooling.  The reader is also introduced to the boys' mother Helen, who becomes a major character as the book moves along.  Bill and Benny are achievers, each obtaining an appointment to the Naval Academy in Annapolis and going on to successful naval careers.  Barton has a flair for the arts and music and doesn't seem to have the same drive to succeed.  He is sent to a private boarding school for high school to try to improve his academic standing but is not offered a position in Annapolis.  He spends a year at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C. instead.  He survives all the hazing and harsh treatment as a first-year cadet.  Succeeding at The Citadel he transfers to the Naval Academy, where he endures yet another year of hazing and brutal physical punishment.  He proceeds to fail a math class by a fraction of a point and winds up at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.  He graduates from there with a business degree.  The point of all this backstory regarding Barton is important for the reader to know since these experiences were very formative and explain how he could survive the ordeals inflicted by his Japanese captors.  The reader also sees Helen Cross as a manipulative and obtrusive parent, what today we would call a "helicopter parent".  She embarks on letter writing campaigns every time she perceives that her son has been mistreated.  

     Meanwhile, Bill becomes an attorney and then, as a naval reservist, becomes a Naval Intelligence officer.  Benny moves up the ladder of command at sea.  As World War II approaches, Bill, recognizing that Barton will inevitably be drafted into the Army, pulls strings and gets Barton into the Navy as a supply officer.  Bill figures that this arrangement will keep Barton out of harm's way.  Unfortunately, exactly the opposite occurs as Barton is in the wrong place at the wrong time as the Japanese overwhelm the Philippines.  

     What follow is the story of Bill and Benny's relentless pursuit of information pertaining to their imprisoned brother and Barton's horrific ordeals at the hands of his Japanese captors.  Bill uses his position as chief of the White House Map Room (the war room) and his close relationship to President Roosevelt to gain access to classified prisoner and casualty lists.  Benny gets closer and closer to the Philippines as the U.S. Navy moves across the many Pacific islands as the war progresses.  These brothers collectively are witnesses to most of the pivotal events of the Pacific war: the attack on Pearl Harbor, the naval battles at Coral Sea and Midway, the Doolittle raid, and the utilization of the atomic bomb.  The author also exposes the infighting between the Army and Navy over strategy and the personal battles between General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz.  

     This book is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that it highlights the intense emotional toll that war has on families.  The unraveling of marriages, the disruption of any sense of normalcy, and, especially poignant, the terror inflicted on family members of prisoners of war.  Using Helen's diary entries and her many letters to naval officers, congressmen, and even President Roosevelt, the author shows the psychological damage inflicted on those at the home front.  

     In the end, The Jersey Brothers is an exhaustive look at World War II through the eyes of a remarkable family and their many contributions to the war effort.  The author is the daughter of Bill Mott, and she has obviously poured her heart and soul into this work.  She brings the horror of war down to a very personal level; Bill, Benny, and Barton are presented as the heroes that they indeed were, but with all their humanity, doubts, failings, and inadequacies presented as well.  The Jersey Brothers is a remarkable achievement and one which I will not soon forget.  

 

Book Review: Descartes's Secret Notebook by Amir D. Aczel

Descartes’s Secret Notebook

Author: Amir D. Aczel

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Date of Publication: October 10, 2006

Pages: 288

            This fascinating and highly readable book is part biography, part mystery and part treatise on philosophy and mathematics.  Rene Descartes lived from 1596 to 1650.  His life was one of adventure and discovery.  His philosophy was hotly debated at the time and his discoveries in mathematics were and are regarded as genius.  This author tries to add another layer to the legend by examining a purported secret notebook, long lost but copied in part by German mathematician Gottfied Wilhelm Leibniz after Descartes’ death.

Rene Descartes was born to a wealthy family in the town of Chatellerault, France.  He was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church and remained a devout and loyal Catholic his entire life.  His mother died in childbirth a year later and Descartes’ own health as a youth is described as poor.  He received what we all recognize as the great advantage of a Jesuit education at what is now a military academy in the town of La Fleche, the Prytanee National Militaire.  He then received a doctor of laws degree in 1616 and moved to Paris.  In Paris he developed his interests in mathematics, physics and eventually, philosophy.  He also traveled extensively to the Netherlands and Denmark.  His health as an adult was much improved and he never lost his interest in the military.  He even joined the army of Maximilian, the duke of Bavaria, at the beginning of the Thirty Years War.  It was during this time as a volunteer soldier in Maximilian’s army that he began his studies and interpretations of geometry and science.  Eventually Descartes settled in Holland where his Cartesian philosophy created controversy.  Everyone is familiar with “I think, therefore I am” (or “Cogito, ergo sum”), but the basis for this definitive statement is a very concise, even mathematical, proof of the existence of God.  This was the time of turmoil between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations and the acceptance of Descartes’ reasoning was not universal. He was even accused of the serious charge of atheism despite his devout Catholic heritage and practice.  Eventually Descartes became the philosophy instructor for Queen Christina of Denmark.  There were jealousies between Descartes and the Queen’s other instructors as Descartes quickly became the young Queen’s favorite.  The fact that the others were strict Calvinists played a role.  Descartes died under somewhat suspicious circumstances in Sweden in 1650.  There are suggestions that he may have been poisoned by a rival.  His belongings were catalogued and shipped to relatives in France.  Eventually many of his original documents, including the secret notebook alluded to in the book’s title, disappeared.

The secret notebook was a private notebook which Descartes never intended to publish.  He used codes and symbols that were indecipherable for centuries.  Part of this notebook was copied by Leibniz shortly after Descartes death and that is all that remains of the document.  Some historians felt that this notebook represented Descartes membership in a secret society, the Rosicrucians.  Others felt that Descartes had discovered the origins of the universe.  It was not until 1987 when Pierre Costabel published his definitive analysis of Leibniz’ copy of Descartes’ secret notebook that the true meaning of the secret notebook was revealed.  Descartes had discovered a coveted formula for a rule which governs the structure of three dimensional solid objects.  This was mystery which had eluded Plato and the other Greek geometricians as well as all other mathematicians in history.  He had discovered the modern field of topology centuries before its time.  The reason he repressed this discovery was because it supported Kepler and Copernicus and their analysis of planetary motion around the sun.  The timing of this coincided with the Roman Catholic Church’s prosecution of Galileo for heresy.  Descartes, the loyal Catholic, did not want to suffer the same fate.

There are many interesting side stories in this tale, including the simultaneous discovery of the calculus by Newton in England and Leibniz in Germany.  There may be a connection between these two men which would be, of course, Rene Descartes.  Descartes private life is examined as far as historical facts allow, including a possible marriage to a servant girl and a relationship of some sort with Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria who was living in exile in Holland at the same time as Descartes.  The exact relationship between Descartes and Queen Christina is a mystery as well.  At about age 40 Descartes noticed his first grey hairs.  He felt this was a sign of impending death and began dissecting animals by the hundreds in an attempt to discover the secret to a prolonged life.  He greatly altered his diet, becoming basically a vegetarian.

This is a fascinating book.  I remembered very little of Descartes from my Philosophy 101 class and this book made me wish I had paid more attention.  The historical aspects of this time are equally absorbing.  The author makes the mathematics understandable (not an easy task in my humble opinion) and the philosophy enjoyable.  

Rene Descartes
1596-1650

Book Review: The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris

The Butchering Art

Author: Lindsey Fitzharris

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Date of Publication: October 17, 2017

Pages: 304

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed,

without any other reason but because they are not already common."

- John Locke

     The Butchering Art is a totally captivating work of creative non-fiction, made even more remarkable by the fact that it represents the first book written by author Lindsey Fitzharris.  The author received a PhD. in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology from Oxford University in 2009.   Honors awarded to The Butchering Art include: Winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing, Top 10 Science Books of Fall 2017 by Publisher's Weekly and a Best History Book of 2017 by "The Guardian."  In addition to this novel, the author has written for “The Guardian”, “The Lancet” and “New Scientist.”  She has a huge social media presence including a fascinating blog: "The Chirurgeon's Apprentice".  You can also follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DrLindseyFitzharris/ but be prepared for some graphic posts!  She also has many multi-media projects in progress including a British Television Series: "Medicine's Dark Secrets". 

     The Butchering Art is first and foremost a biography of Joseph Lister.  Lister was born on April 5,1827 in Wetsham, Essex, England to devout Quaker parents.   His father, Joseph Jackson Lister was a great devotee of the microscope and developed the "achromatic lens" which reduced distortions.  Young Lister was very interested in his father's microscope and became proficient in its use.  He announced he wanted to be a surgeon, at that time a profession held in low regard.  He attended the University College of London, beginning in 1844.  Lister was noted to be hardworking and diligent, despite the poor reputation of medical students of the day (who were described as “lawless, exuberant, and addicted to nocturnal activities” in one journal).  Lister brought a microscope with him although the use of that instrument in medical studies was more accepted in Paris than in London.  The author describes the conditions in the medical school in the 1840s.  First, there was no protective gear in the “dissecting rooms” or anatomy labs.  Students routinely went directly from their cadavers to their living patients without so much as washing their hands.  Also, there were two schools of thought in the field of infectious disease: Contagionists, who believed in an "agent of disease" vs. Anti-contagionists, or miasmatists, who believed that diseases were transmitted through the air via poisonous vapors.  Only four types of infections were recognized: eryspielas, hospital gangrene, pyemia and septicemia.  Post-operative infections were routine and mortality rates were very high.

     The author spends one chapter discussing the rapid urbanization and increased population density in London.  These conditions set the stage for more injuries and illnesses.  Lister was frustrated at the high mortality associated with surgery and was intent on finding the cause of infection and used his microscope to investigate.  He felt that something in the wound itself had to be at fault, not just the air around the patient.  Lister: "I examined microscopically the slough from one of the sores, and I made a sketch of some bodies of pretty uniform size which I imagined might be the materies morbi (morbid substances).  The idea that it was probably of parasitic nature was at that early period already present in my mind."

      Lister completed his surgical training and sat for examinations by the Royal College of Surgeons.  It was recommended that he tour European medical schools to learn more about recent advances.  His first stop on this tour was the University of Edinburgh to study with James Syme, renowned professor of surgery.  Syme had achieved quite a bit of notoriety for his economy of technique and time which he tried to achieve with nearly every form of operation he undertook.  Syme took special interest in Lister, who decided to stay in Scotland instead of pursuing appointments in London or resuming travels to Europe.  Lister was elected to membership in The Royal College of Surgeons of Scotland and advanced on staff of Dr. Syme.  Also, during this time he courted and married Syme's oldest daughter.  Lister then began a series of experiments on frogs to study effects of inflammation on wound healing.  He discovered that "a certain amount of inflammation as caused by direct irritation is essential to primary union.  Inflammation of a wound did not necessarily presage sepsis."  These are concepts which are central to wound healing physiology today.

     Lister applied for the position of Regius Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Glasgow and was recommended by Dr. Syme: "Lister has a strict regard for accuracy, extremely correct powers of observation and a remarkably sound judgment united to uncommon manual dexterity and a practical turn of mind."  While in Glasgow, Lister grew increasingly frustrated by his inability to prevent and manage septic conditions in his patients.  His case notes catalogue the questions plaguing him:  "11 P.M.  Query.  How does the poisonous matter get from the wound into the veins?  Is it that the clot in the orifices of the cut veins suppurates, or is poisonous matter absorbed by minute veins and carried into the venous trunks?"  He became an advocate of cleanliness in the hospital, even though his method for antisepsis was still to come.  At the same time as Lister was studying inflammation and infection, there were many surgeons in Europe interested in the high maternal post-partum mortality from "puerperal fever."  Alexander Gordon in Scotland wrote in 1789 that puerperal fever was secondary to contamination by the medical staff.  This idea was summarily rejected.  Oliver Wendell Holmes in America revived Gordon's ideas fifty years later and Ignaz Semmelweis in Vienna spoke of "cadaverous particles" which could be transmitted through medical students from the anatomy labs to the obstetrical wards.  He instituted a chlorine hand wash when leaving the anatomy lab and reduced incidence of puerperal fever.  In the 1840's it was proven that cholera was caused by contaminated sewage and not "miasma" or bad air and changed the view of how diseases spread.  In France, chemist Louis Pasteur showed that bacteria ruined fermentation in wine.  Finally, Lister applied this knowledge to the septic wound and proposed the application of antiseptic agents (first potassium permanganate and then carbolic acid) which greatly reduced the infection rate in surgically treated compound fractures.  Lister published his findings in “The Lancet” with a five-installment article which began on March 16, 1867.

     Lister's concepts and method were not immediately accepted.  There was conflict with James Y. Simpson, a noted gynecologist and the discoverer of Chloroform anesthetic.  First Dr. Simpson wrote a letter to “The Lancet” claiming Lister was only repeating studies already performed in Europe and secondly that his own method of preventing infection, acupressure, was more effective.  Lister repeatedly defended antisepsis, pointing to the strict scientific method with which he had reached his conclusions.  Lister's method was also rejected by another distinguished London surgeon, James Padgett, who did note, however, that he might not have been applying the method correctly.

     

     In 1869 Dr. Syme passed away and Lister returned to Edinburgh to take his place.  There was still a debate regarding the efficacy of Lister's method.  Improved mortality rates were attributed to better ventilation, improved diet and improvements in nursing rather than antiseptic technique.  However, Lister's students became believers and marveled at Lister's continued experimentation and constant adjustments to his antiseptic technique.  His students, who came to be known as "Listerians", realized the value of experimentation in medicine and that observational acuity and accuracy could lead to improvements in surgery.  Lister's method gained traction with surgeons in Europe, particularly Richard von Volkmann in Germany and gradually gained acceptance in Britain.  Lister then went on to develop the atomizer, a device to spray carbolic acid into the air to reduce bacteria.

     In 1871 Lister was called to care for Queen Victoria who was suffering with a large axillary abscess.  He used his carbolic acid atomizer on the Queen and then drained the infection.  When he noted further drainage on the first post-operative day, he improvised a new treatment.  He soaked some rubber tubing in carbolic acid and placed it into the wound.  The Queen recovered and this was the first use of a surgical drain!

      In 1876 Lister was invited to speak in America where his methods were greeted with much skepticism.  His presentation in Philadelphia was criticized by Samuel Gross: "Little, if any faith, is placed by any enlightened or experienced surgeon on this side of the Atlantic in the so-called treatment of Professor Lister."  Listerism gradually gained acceptance in America and Massachusetts General became the first hospital in America to make institutional use of carbolic acid as a surgical antiseptic.  Lister's method became universally accepted during his lifetime.  He died in 1912 as a hero of medicine and science.

     Interestingly, the change which occurred in surgery through Lister's efforts have been immortalized in the art of Thomas Eakins.  Dr. Gross, who had espoused the contrarian view to Listerism in Philadelphia, commissioned a painting by Eakins entitled "The Gross Clinic":

                                                        

      

 In this painting, Dr. Gross is operating on the femur of a young man with osteomyelitis.  There are unsterilized instruments displayed and one of the surgical assistants is seen probing the wound with his bare and bloody fingers.  Twenty years later Eakins painted "The Agnew Clinic":

                                       

                                             

In contrast, this painting shows the embodiment of antisepsis and hygiene.  It is a cleaner and brighter surgical theater with the surgeons wearing stark white coats rather than street clothes.             

     The Butchering Art is a meticulously researched scientific exercise and yet it reads like a novel.  It is one of those rare books which educates and at the same time entertains.  It is a biography of Joseph Lister, a history of medicine as it struggles to enter the modern age, a historical monograph describing London, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the mid 1800's and a socio-economic treatise describing urbanization, poverty and social injustice in the Victorian era.  It is a long book, but I recommend it highly.  Dr. Fitzharris' next book will be a similar treatment of Sir Harold Gillies and the development of the specialty of reconstructive plastic surgery.

       

                                                       
   


                                          

Book Review: The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

The Wright Brothers

Author: David McCullough

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Date of Publication: May 5, 2015

Pages: 320

     David McCullough is a two time Pulitzer Prize winner (for biographies of Harry Truman and John Quincy Adams) and has won multiple other awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Here he turns his incredible research and writing skills towards Orville and Wilbur Wright, the designers and pilots of the first controlled, sustained and powered flight of a heavier than air aircraft.

The Wright Brothers National Memorial
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina

                           

      The first part of this book details the early childhood and education of Wilbur and Orville Wright in Dayton, Ohio.  There were five Wright siblings.  Their mother, Susan Koerner Wright, was the more deductive and logical thinking parent and fostered an inquisitive nature in all of her children.  Their father, Bishop Milton Wright, was a clergyman who traveled a lot for work.  He brought the boys a toy "helicopter" back from one trip. The toy was basically a propeller on a stick with rubber bands which would fly when released.  Both Orville and Wilbur were fascinated with this toy and proceeded to build their own versions when the original finally broke.  Neither Orville or Wilbur attended college, starting a printing business instead.  Wilbur had planned to attend Yale, but was injured in an ice hockey accident and following a prolonged convalescence joined Orville in his new business venture.  Orville had designed and built his own printing presses.  One of their first clients was a high school classmate and friend, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the renowned African-American poet who was publishing his own newspaper at the time.   As bicycles became a more popular mode of travel Orville and Wilbur opened their own cycle shop and later began manufacturing their own brand of bicycles.  All the while, they maintained their interest in flight.  They used the proceeds from their business success to fund their own experiments in aircraft design.  They even developed their own wind tunnel to test different wing designs.  They began building gliders based on a bi-wing design originated by the Chicago engineer Octave Chanute.  They were disappointed by the amount of lift they were getting with their initial gliders and began to question the equations and calculations of Otto Lilienthal, a German aviation pioneer.  Wilbur made his own calculations based on their wind tunnel experiments and used these to perfect wing shape and design of the Wright gliders

Reconstruction of the Wright Brothers
living quarters and workshop.
Kill Devil Hills, N.C.

The 1903 Flyer replica with the Monument
in the background.

     Lift was the first of three major problems which had to be solved in order for the first flight to be successful.  The others were control and power.  At this point in the story, the Wrights had moved their glider testing to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  They had asked for wind data from the National Weather Service and found the the Outer Banks of North Carolina were the second windiest place on the continent (Chicago was first).  The brothers wanted privacy and secrecy as they carried out their experiments, so the Outer Banks became their first choice.  The Outer Banks in 1900 was an obscure sand bar, reachable only by boat.  It was described by contemporaries as harder to get to than Tibet (many modern vacationers on a summer Saturday or Sunday may think it is still so).  

     The chapters that describe the experiences on the Outer Banks are fascinating.  Wilbur made the first trip North Carolina in 1900 and made it as far as Elizabeth City.  It took him four days to find someone with a boat who had heard of Kitty Hawk.  It then took three days to get from Elizabeth City to Kitty Hawk.  The total isolation and harsh environment is very vividly described here.  Over the years the Wrights were aided by the few locals including the staff of the Kitty Hawk life saving station (that building is now The Black Pelican Restaurant).  Solving the control issue was difficult but Orville and Wilbur studied the many birds on the Outer Banks to help them decipher how to smoothly and predictably control direction and elevation during flight.  They found the turkey buzzard particularly helpful!  These large ungainly birds use the tips of their wings to alter their direction and the brothers used that concept to better control their glider.  

The original motor from the 1903 Wright Flyer
Kill Devil Hills, NC

     The final piece of the puzzle was how to power the glider to sustain flight.  They approached the automobile manufacturers of the day who told them that an engine with the weight limitations and power requirements was impossible to build.  This is when Charlie Taylor played an integral role in the whole project.  This fellow was a machinist whom the brothers had hired to manage their bicycle business in Dayton, Ohio while they were off doing their experiments in North Carolina.  When the brother explained their engine problem to Charlie he built a four cylinder gasoline powered engine out of aluminum which was light enough for the glider but could produce more than the needed horsepower.  The Wrights also had to design their own propellers since their were no precedents for this.  Nautical propellers were useless and the Wrights carved their own propellers which closely resembled the toy helicopter of their youth.  This set the stage for the first successful flight, piloted by Orville (chosen by a flip of a coin), at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903.   The news traveled very slowly in those days and their was great skepticism in the aviation community that the Wright Brothers had actually accomplished the first flight.   The next section of the book details their refinement of their "Wright Flyer" which was accomplished closer to home in Huffman Prarie, an 84 acre cow pasture eight miles north of Dayton.  The remainder of the book describes how the brothers presented their invention to the world.  The United States government was slow to recognize the importance so Wilbur took the flyer to France and demonstrated its efficacy through multiple exhibition flights at Le Mans.  Eventually the U.S. recognized the Wright's invention and its potential.   Orville was then able to perform exhibition flights at Fort Myer, Virginia.  There is a video of a 1909 flight at Fort Myer on YouTube.  The first air crash fatality occurred at Fort Myer when a guy wire came loose mid-flight interfering with the propeller.  Orville crash landed, killing his military passenger and being seriously injured himself.

Replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer - Kill Devil Hills, N.C.
(The original is in the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum, Washington, D.C.)

     Following the exhibition flights the Wrights formed their own production company and spent the ensuing years perfecting their design and fighting patent infringements in the courts.

     Wilbur died of typhoid fever at age 45 in 1912.  Orville lived until 1948 and died of a heart attack.  Orville lived long enough to see the terrible effects of the airplane in warfare and even witnessed the atomic bomb dropped from a descendant of his invention.  In his later years Orville wrote: 

  "We dared to hope we had invented something that would bring lasting peace to the earth. But we were wrong ... No, I don't have any regrets about my part in the invention of the airplane, though no one could deplore more than I do the destruction it has caused. I feel about the airplane much the same as I do in regard to fire. That is, I regret all the terrible damage caused by fire, but I think it is good for the human race that someone discovered how to start fires and that we have learned how to put fire to thousands of important uses."

     

     McCullough's book very thoroughly tells the Wright Brothers story as the fable that it has become: that two humble brothers, both high school drop-outs, confirmed bachelors and bicycle mechanics, together solved the problems which allowed man to fly.  This equal effort, equal ingenuity and equal credit fable is challenged in a recent article by William Hazelgrove in the December, 2018 issue of Smithsonian Magazine.  In his article "Why Wilbur Wright Deserves the Bulk of the Credit for the First Flight" Hazelgrove asserts that Wilbur had the imagination and deductive reasoning required to figure out what needed to be done to create a flying machine.  Orville was the "historian" - recording events as they happened on paper and on film.  According to Hazelgrove, the fact that Orville lived so much longer allowed him to write the history the way he saw it - with shared credit given to both brothers.  Hazelgrove uses the brothers' own writings to justify this viewpoint, especially when Wilbur describes "his" flyer and "his" propeller when writing to his father.  McCullough used the same resources to create his book but did not jump to this conclusion.  A 1930 article about Orville Wright recently republished in The New Yorker magazine points out that in an Encyclopedia Britannica article (also published in 1930) about the first flight, all of the credit is given to Wilbur with almost no mention of Orville.  That encylcopedia article was written by Orville Wright.

     Regardless of which account you adhere to, the story of the Wright Brothers is a fantastic testament to creativity, problem solving and "thinking outside of the box".  McCullough's book is a very readable and entertaining as well as instructive read.  I recommend it highly to anyone who has visited or plans to visit the Outer Banks!

The first powered flight at Kill Devil Hills, NC, December 17, 1903

The Wright Brothers Memorial Monument at Kill Devil Hills, illuminated during a Light Art exhibition, August, 2018

Book Review: The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

The Lost City of the Monkey God

Author: Douglas Preston

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Date of Publication: September 5, 2017

Pages: 407

     Douglas Preston is a multi-faceted and accomplished writer.  He has written articles for "National Geographic" and "The New Yorker" as well as non-fiction best sellers (The Monster of Florence).  He is also the co-author with Lincoln Child of a best-selling detective series.  He uses all of the tools in his toolbox for The Lost City of the Monkey God.  It has all of the detail and science contained in a serious periodical piece, the pace and style of the best fiction, and it tells a truly fascinating (and true) story to boot.

     The Lost City chronicles an expedition to find the legendary "White City" in Honduras.  For five hundred years people have speculated on the existence of a huge lost city in the rain forest which had been the home of a vanished culture.  Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes reported hearing of a vast community with great wealth and from this the legend grew.  Over the ensuing centuries various researchers, archeologists and explorers hypothesized on the location.  Interest in this lost city increased in the 1990s and several attempts were made to find it in the early 2000s.  It wasn't until the advent of lidar technology (lidar is an acronym for light imaging, detection and ranging) that a credible location for the White City could be defined.  The author adroitly explains this space age technology and how it has been used to find historical sites buried in sand in the Middle East.  Science readers will appreciate this chapter.   Preston goes on to describe how lidar was used in the Honduran rain forest and how it helped pinpoint a possible location for further exploration.  It was film maker Steve Elkins, fascinated by the legend of the lost White City, who proposed using lidar to try to locate it.  It was Elkins who finally got this expedition together once the possible location was discovered with lidar.

   Once the planning and funding of the expedition was arranged, Preston was invited to join the team as a journalist.  Permission from the Honduran government was finally obtained (politics is politics, regardless of what country) and the expedition was on.  What follows is a vivid portrayal of a wild experience worthy of an Indiana Jones movie!  Dilapidated helicopters delivered a motley group of scientists and academics deep into an impenetrable jungle.  Camp sites were protected by incompetent and corrupt members of the Honduran armed forces.  Danger was around every tree.  Here is how Preston describes what happened on his first night in the jungle:  "Eager to record some of the stories being told, I hurried back to my hammock on the other side of camp to fetch my notebook.  My new headlamp was defective, so Juan Carlos loaned me a crank flashlight."  Needless to say, Preston got disoriented in the dark, lost the trail but finally found his way back to the campsite.  "Thrilled to be safely back in camp, I circled the hammock, probing the wall of forest with my light for the path that would take me to where the rest of the group was chatting.  On my second circle of the hammock, I froze as my beam passed over a huge snake."  It was a fer-de-lance, one of the largest and deadliest of the venomous snakes indigenous to the area.  "It was staring at me, in striking position, its head swaying back and forth, its tongue flicking in and out.  I had walked right past it - twice."  An unbelievable two page description of bringing the six foot snake down follows.  This description is more frightening than anything every written by Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe or anybody else for that matter!

     There is a lot here for history buffs as well.  Preston educates the reader about "Pre-Columbian" and "Post-Columbian" eras in Central America and also about Mayan and other native cultures.  Many artifacts were discovered in the areas pin-pointed by the lidar scans and knowledge of the history and culture of the area was critical when trying to elucidate their origins and time period.

     The story doesn't end with the expedition.  For months after everyone returned, more and more of the explorers became sick with fevers, muscle aches, cramps and skin lesions.  This included Douglas Preston who came down with the illness while on a holiday with his wife in Switzerland and France.  Several chapters follow which discuss various tropical and infectious diseases.  Eventually the National Institute of Health became involved and the responsible parasite was finally identified and proper treatment prescribed. 

     In summary, this book was exciting, fascinating, educational and scary.  Often all at the same time.  I can't recommend it highly enough. 

Book Review: Dead Wake by Erik Larson

Dead Wake

Author: Erik Larson

Publisher: Crown/Archetype

Date of Publication: March 10, 2015

Pages: 448

     The Lusitania was a British luxury liner owned by the Cunard Line, launched in 1906.  She was sunk by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915 causing the death of 1,168 passengers and crew.  Erik Larson has used his considerable research skills to bring us the story of this magnificent ship's 202nd and final voyage.

     The author uses diaries, contemporary and historical accounts as well as recorded interviews with survivors to paint a vivid picture.  The ship left New York under the cloud of a published threat from Germany  that non-military ships in the war zone were now targets for their submarines.  Most passengers took the naive attitude that the Lusitania, being one of the fastest ocean liners in history, would never fall victim to a submarine. Submarines were known to lack speed and maneuverability.  Others were genuinely worried and fatalistic.  Like the passenger list of the Titanic, many rich and famous were on board the Lusitania.  These included famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat, noted female architect Theodate Pope, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt and a host of actresses, socialites and politicians.  This book is their story as well.  For instance, Lauriat was carrying a first edition Dickens as well as priceless antique pen and ink sketches to be viewed in England.

     The author does a fine job of alternating points of view between the Lusitania and her captain William Thomas Turner  and the German submarine U-20 and her captain Walter Schweiger.  Even though the outcome is known, the tension builds as the submarine patrols the waters to the west of Britain and the Lusitania churns across the North Atlantic towards her fate.

    Turner and Schweiger are two of the more compelling characters in the book.  Turner, a respected and very experienced Maritime seaman is drawn in contrast to Schweiger, the career military man with a quest for notoriety.  Turner was noted for efficiency and speed.  It was said that "None was better than Captain Turner at handling large ships."

     The story of the Lusitania is presented in the broader context of the First World War.  The author does a great job of contrasting the luxurious trappings enjoyed by the Lusitania passengers to the horrors experienced by the soldiers fighting in Europe:

"'The scene,' he (Rear Admiral Emile Guepratte on the French battleship Suffren) wrote, 'was tragically macabre: the image of desolation, the flames spared nothing.  As for our young men, a few minutes ago, so alert, so self-confident, all now lay dead on the bare deck, blackened burnt skeletons, twisted in all driections, no trace of any clothing, the fire having devoured all."

In contrast: "Aboard the Lusitania, there was quiet.  There were books, and cigars, and fine foods, afternoon tea, and the easy cadence of shipboard life: strolling the deck, chatting at the rails, doing crochet, and just sitting still in a deck chair in the sea breeze.  Now and then a ship appeared in the distance;  close at hand, whales."

     Another notable story line in Dead Wake is that of President Woodrow Wilson and his private life.  As the book opens, Wilson's first wife Ellen Axson Wilson becomes ill and succumbs to Bright's Disease.  Wilson becomes nearly incapacitated by depression and the author implies that this inertia, more than any other cause, was responsible for America's neutrality in the early stages of World War I as well as for Wilson's lack of response to the Armenian genocide.  Later, Wilson meets and begins courting widow Edith Bolling Galt who becomes his second wife.  It is interesting reading of Wilson's unescorted evening walks and drives through Washington and his pursuit of Ms. Galt.

   The author hints at the many conspiracy theories surrounding the tragedy of the Lusitania.  He never really resolves the idea that the British, by withholding intelligence data and failing to provide military escort to the Lusitania, may have allowed the attack to happen in order to outrage America and bring the United States into the war.  The author also acknowledges that there were munitions aboard the Lusitania to be delivered to the British, giving the Germans cause to sink the vessel.  It is unclear who was responsible for this violation or whether the Germans were aware that these desperately needed supplies were aboard.

     This is a very well written and interesting overview of  the sinking of the Lusitania on the hundredth anniversary of the event.  Although some compelling questions go unanswered, this is a great starting point for anyone interested in this fascinating chapter in American and world history.

Book Review: The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

The Wordy Shipmates

Author: Sarah Vowell

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA), Incorporated

Date of Publication: October 7, 2008

Pages: 272 

     Sarah Vowell takes a very intriguing and often humorous look at the Puritans in The Wordy Shipmates.  She explores the social and political climate in England which prompted the Puritans to embark on a treacherous voyage aboard the Arbella to the New World to found a "city on the hill" in Massachusetts.  She does a very good job of relating this early colonial history to current events and politics.  The views espoused by John Winthrop, Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson echo through the centuries and appear in modern speeches by Mario Cuomo, George W. Bush, John Kerry and others.  This is a fascinating look at colonial Massachusetts and sheds light on contemporary issues.

     The author illustrates her points with less well known historical vignettes.  For instance, the story of the mass murder of the Pequot Indians by colonists in a fit of self-righteous zealotry shows that using the banner of religion to further a cause and justify violence is nothing new and wasn't invented by radical Islam.  The story of Anne Hutchinson and the denial of her rights to use her God given abilities because of her gender is used as a  frustrating example of the Puritans narrow-mindedness.  

     The author ends the book by examining John Kennedy's Presidential campaign.  Kennedy's speeches liberally quote from John Winthrop's sermons, in particular his "city on the hill" metaphor and his notation that "the eyes of the world are upon us."  The vision of a 17th century Protestant colonist preacher inspiring and informing a 20th century Catholic politician campaigning for the highest elected office in the land is ironic at the least.  

     This is an excellent book, winding themes from the 1600s and showing how these same questions and thoughts prevail in today's world.  These stories are told with great doses of humor and the author has a tremendous eye for the sardonic and unexpected.  I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in religion, politics or early American history.

Book Review: Death in the City of Light by David King

Death in the City of Light

Author: David King

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Date of Publication: June 5, 2012

Pages: 462 (Trade Paperback Edition)

     Death in the City of Light is a disturbing look at a fascinating side story to the Nazi occupation of Paris.   It begins with a grisly discovery of dismembered bodies in various stages of decay in an up-scale neighborhood of the 16^th Arrondissement of Paris.  This discovery sets off a search for the strange and puzzling owner of the building who promptly disappears. 

     The book is an attempt to define or describe Dr. Marcel Petiot.  He is a medical doctor whose past as well as his life in Paris is cloaked in mystery.  The author has done painstaking research into Dr. Petiot’s entire life story in order to help the reader try to understand the incomprehensible.    He also includes many contemporary accounts of the investigations of the despicable crimes for which the doctor was eventually tried and convicted.   The author cleverly leaves unanswered (as does history) the conundrum of which of two stories is true.  The first story (expounded at the criminal trial) is that the doctor was a merciless killer who lured innocents into a trap by promising them a road to freedom from the Nazis.  He instead stole all of their belongings, tortured them and then dismembered and disposed of their bodies.  He had a history of mental illness and there arose some question as to whether the doctor was in fact insane.  There was speculation that he had indeed also killed his first wife years before.  The second story as told by the doctor as his defense is that he was a master of deception, working for a faction of the French Resistance, did indeed help people escape to Argentina and was framed by the Gestapo.  There is some corroboration of the Doctor’s version of events.  The author presents all of the available evidence for both stories.

     There are other notable characters whom the author fleshes out in detail, including the police inspector, Dr. Petiot's wife and brother (accomplices or naive relatives?) as well as many of the victims who disappeared.  These secondary characters add a lot of texture to the story of Dr. Petiot.

     It is very interesting to read of the attempts at justice and proper police investigation by the French during the chaos of Nazi occupation.  It is also interesting to read a about a murder investigation which took place many decades before the availability of forensic studies such as DNA analysis which we so take for granted. Death in the City of Light is a fascinating book, although at times the author sacrifices pace and readability for comprehensive reporting.  The character of Dr. Petiot is portrayed as somewhat of a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”  which rings true whichever story you as the reader want or come to believe.

Book Review: Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

Lost in Shangri-La

Author: Mitchell Zuckoff

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: April 26, 2011 (Hardcover Edition)

Pages: 384 (Trade Paperback Edition)

     Lost in Shangri-La is an excellent example of "creative non-fiction", a genre generally recognized as invented by Truman Capote with In Cold Blood.   Mitchell Zuckoff is a former reporter for "The Boston Globe" (Pulitzer finalist for investigative reporting) and a professor of journalism at Boston University.  He brings all of his investigative prowess to this work.  This is an engrossing story of a little known rescue mission which occurred towards the end of World War II on the island of New Guinea.  

     The city of Hollandia on the northern coast of New Guinea was a supply depot and support base for American troops moving up the island chain towards Japan.  A previously unknown remote central valley was discovered by Navy pilots and found to be inhabited by primitive tribes.  Twenty four soldiers embarked on a pleasure ride from Hollandia aboard a plane nicknamed "The Little Gremlin" to see this valley which had been dubbed "Shangri-La" from the 1933 novel The Lost Horizon.   There were three survivors when the plane crashed in the dense jungle covered mountainside.  The survivors included a WAC corporal, Margaret Hastings.  The story of a female soldier lost in a jungle with primitive and cannibalistic savages made for big headlines back in the States.

     The author uses contemporary documents, interviews with survivors, rescue team members and even jungle tribesmen to create a vivid and unforgettable narrative.  He deftly includes background on the natives, the geography of the region and some military politics.  All of these details are needed to understand the complete story.  The fiinal rescue mission is suspenseful and thrilling.  Photographs are included to make the story even more real.

     I found this a very compelling story of human perseverance and courage which the author tells in a very entertaining and instructive way.  I recommend Lost in Shangri-La highly.

Movie Review: Lincoln

"Lincoln"

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Distributed by Touchstone Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Dreamworks Pictures,

Participant Median and Relliance Entertainment

Theatrical Relase Date: November 9, 2012

     At the risk of sounding un-American or racist, this movie is a snoozefest.  It's a bit like looking at a 150 year old broadcast of C-SPAN.  

     The plot concerns the passage of the 13th Amendment.  That's it.  Lincoln is a recently re-elected second term President, mired in an unpopular war and fighting a partisan fight to pass the constitutional amendment which would guarantee the abolition of slavery.  The same political gridlock and Congressional shenanigans plaguing 21st Century Washington D.C. are at play here.

     Daniel Day-Lewis is absolutely incredible in his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln.  After a while, though, the masterful performance becomes lost in the story which moves at glacial speed.  Some of the other casting is a bit suspect.  This particularly applies to Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln who plays this role like the 19 the century version of Forest Gump's mother.   

    It was fun to see many familiar sights from the Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia areas where the movie was filmed.  The Virginia State Capitol is transformed into the U.S. Capitol and the old Petersburg train station is featured in several early scenes.

     This movie is about a very important historical achievement by probably our most effective and revered President.  It probably won't rate as one of Hollywood or Spielberg's greatest accomplishments because of the pacing and long tedious scenes dominated by dialogue and political rhetoric.  If you go, I'd suggest a stop at Starbuck's for a double Cafe Americano first.

Book Review: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

Author: Tim Weiner

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Date Published: June, 2007 (Hardcover Edition)

Pages: 848 (Trade Paper Edition, including notes)

This book begins with a quote from 17^th century French literary figure Jean Racine: “There are no secrets that time does not reveal.”  It appears that time, the Freedom of Information Act and author Tim Weiner have revealed many of the most closely kept secrets of CIA.  They also have shattered any myth of competence and exposed the many weaknesses of and abuses of power by CIA in its sixty year history.  Tim Weiner is a respected investigative journalist, having written about American intelligence for “The New York Times” for over twenty years and received a Pulitzer Prize for his work on secret national security programs.

The book is divided by presidential administration, beginning with the founding of CIA under Harry Truman.  The title of the book is derived from a quote by Dwight Eisenhower and summarizes his assessment of the intelligence community’s performance during his administration and what he was leaving for the incoming President, John F. Kennedy.

The purpose for founding CIA was to provide accurate information to the President regarding our enemies as well as allies so that the President and cabinet could then make intelligent foreign policy decisions.  The battle early on was between “information gatherers” and “covert operators”.  Eventually the covert ops advocates took charge, mainly under the influence of the first Director, Allen Dulles.  Covert operations eventually expanded to include fomenting revolution (Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia and more), assassinations and domestic spying.

Two of the more shocking and frightening parts of the book are the accounts of CIA’s involvement in the assassination of President Diem of South Vietnam under the direction of John and Robert Kennedy as well as the multiple CIA attempts on the life of Fidel Castro.  The book implies that the subsequent assassination of JFK was direct retaliation by Cuba.  CIA knew of contacts between Lee Harvey Oswald and the Cuban embassy in Mexico City in the weeks leading up to November 22, 1963.  Some of this information was withheld from the Warren Commission and many on that Commission were skeptical of their conclusions (including a young representative, Gerald Ford, who was keeping CIA briefed on all of the proceedings).

The second shocking revelation is the outright lies that many Presidents have told the Congress as well as the American people about CIA activities.  These include Dwight Eisenhower lying about U2 spy plane missions over the Soviet Union and Ronald Regan stating unequivocally in his State of the Union message that the United States never supplied arms to Iran when CIA had, in fact, done just that with the full awareness of the Chief Executive. 

Parts of the book read like a Laurel and Hardy comedy.  One example is the U.S. Army aiding and supplying President Sukarno of Indonesia as he fought a coup attempt from his own military which was sponsored by and supplied by CIA.  A second example is the attempts at putting agents on the ground in North Korea during the Korean War.  Every agent dropped into the North was immediately captured and either killed or turned into a double agent within twenty four hours of being deployed. 

The recent intelligence failures regarding Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and Iraq are all well documented and are the final “mind bogglers” in this narrative.  Although there was a Presidential caveat to eliminate Bin Laden during the Clinton administration, CIA missed opportunity after opportunity because (at least in Mr. Weiner’s opinion) of George Tenet’s reticence.  The fiasco of the cruise missile which was launched to take out a munitions cache in Bosnia and instead destroyed the Chinese embassy was based on faulty CIA intelligence.  The now infamous “unequivocal proof” of the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was based on CIA data from one very unreliable source and came second hand from Germany.  That “intelligence” was also years old when it was given to the White House and used as justification for the invasion of Iraq.  All of the pundits who decry George W. Bush’s domestic surveillance and abuse of personal rights and liberties should understand that this type of thing has been going on since the inception of CIA.  CIA was used for domestic spying in the 50s against suspected communists, in the 60s and 70s against civil rights advocates and the anti-war movement and now against suspected terrorists.

This book is a thorough (605 pages plus 175 pages of notes and footnotes) discussion and explanation of American foreign policy over the last sixty years.  If you haven’t read a newspaper in decades or believe that everything that America does in the world is right and just and motivated by good intentions, this book will shock and infuriate you.  If you are cynical about our representative government and believe that power corrupts, this book will do nothing but support that view.  If you are the least bit paranoid, you probably should not read this book at all.  Let’s hope that future presidents have either read this book or have it next on their “must read” list so that they don’t fall into the same traps and temptations as their predecessors.

Book Review: The Great Influenza by John M. Barry

The Great Influenza

By John M. Barry

(Blogger Note: This review was previously published in "LAMLight," the physician newsletter of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine.)

  

The 1918 influenza pandemic which began in Kansas and killed an estimated 100 million people world-wide in a 24 day period is examined in great detail in The Great Influenza by John M. Barry.  Although this is an extensively researched book with a tremendous amount of medical and scientific information it is never boring.  This is a story which could have been as sleep-inducing as an M-1 Histology lecture but has the pace of a Grisham novel and the suspense of any best-selling mystery.  In the Prologue Mr. Barry describes his book as “a story of science, of discovery, of how one thinks, and of how one changes the way one thinks.”  The lessons learned in the early 1900s are very appropriate to be reviewed a century later. 

The story is divided into ten sections.  The first “The Warriors” is an overview of American medicine as it existed in the late 1800s and how it was revolutionized mainly by William Henry Welch and the Johns Hopkins Medical School and research laboratories.  Dr. Welch almost single handedly changed American medicine from a field not far removed from the practices of Hippocrates to a rigorous, science based investigative discipline.  Welch, along with William Halsted at Hopkins and Simon Flexner of the Rockefeller Institute brought American medicine into the modern age and enabled the medical response to the 1918 Influenza epidemic.

The following sections “set the stage”.  Section two (“The Swarm”) is a very succinct course on virology, directed to the layman and appreciated by this reviewer who is very deficient in his knowledge of infectious disease.  “The Tinderbox” explains the social and geopolitical factors which contributed to the situation which became the perfect storm for a pandemic.  The U.S entrance into the Great War precipitated a number of amazing circumstances.  For those appalled by the the George W. Bush administration's Patriot Act and its potential for restriction of personal freedoms, Woodrow Wilson’s Sedition Act looks like downright fascism.  The Sedition Act was responsible for the imprisonment of anyone who spoke or published words questioning the federal government.  This Act was eventually upheld as constitutional by none other than Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.  This law essentially put a lid on any accurate reporting of the flu epidemic.  The facts were thought to be detrimental to public morale and the war effort.   The conscription of most men between 18 and 45 years of age created crowded conditions in training camps, again creating a situation ripe for rapid dissemination of infectious disease.  Physicians were secretly “graded” by local medical societies and the best physicians and almost all nurses were rapidly conscripted into the army and sent over seas, leaving the medical care of the citizenry to older physicians, trained prior to the era of scientific method and regarded as “inferior”.  The Rockefeller Institute was transformed into “Army Auxiliary Laboratory Number One” and entire medical school faculties were sent as units to Europe.

The ensuing sections of the book documents the incredible spread of the disease and the terrible ferocity with which it struck, especially in younger patients.  At one point at Camp Pike in Arkansas, for instance, 13,000 out of 60,000 soldiers were simultaneously sick with influenza.  The death rate among young adults approached 40% and often people woke up feeling fine, had an acute onset of symptoms and were dead within twelve hours.

The modern laboratories established by Welch at Hopkins, Victor Vaughan at Michigan, Charles Eliot at Harvard and William Pepper at Penn as well as Oswald Avery at the Rockefeller Institute, William Park and Anna Williams (virus experts) at the New York City Department of Public Health and Paul Lewis in Philadelphia were all in a race to identify the pathogen responsible for this pandemic and, if possible, develop a vaccine to treat and prevent the disease.  The desperation caused by the presence of death all around them, including within the ranks of their own laboratory workers produced a frenetic research response.  The work produced in 1918 is still evident today.  Pfeiffer discovered the “Influenza Bacillus” (what we call H. Influenza today) which was the bacteria responsible for the rapid demise of the younger patient population.  Avery developed the “chocolate agar” growth medium to expedite growth and identification of H. Influenza, which clarified the role of this pathogen in the pandemic.  Many of the deaths were in fact due to secondary overwhelming bacterial pneumonias and what we recognize today as acute respiratory distress syndrome. 

The concluding sections of the book deal with the aftermath of the pandemic.  The repercussions were felt in every segment of society and in every geographic location.  An interesting historical footnote is that Woodrow Wilson succumbed to influenza during the negotiations at the end of World War I.  After two week convalescence, Wilson backed off of all of his previous demands, conceded to the French and stripped Germany of territory, its army, and crippled its economy.  The author hypothesizes that Wilson was suffering from post-influenza psychosis or mental disturbance and quotes Lloyd George as saying “Wilson suffered a nervous and spiritual breakdown in the middle of the Conference (the Paris Peace Commission).”   Barry concludes: “Historians with virtual unanimity agree that the harshness toward Germany of the Paris peace treaty helped create the economic hardship, nationalistic reaction, and political chaos that fostered the rise of Adolf Hitler.”

The flurry of research activity during and following the pandemic led to the discovery by Avery that the substance that transformed a pneumococcus from one without a capsule to a more virulent one with a capsule was DNA.  A report from Avery, MacLeod and McCarty titled “Studies on the Chemical Nature of the Substance Inducing Transformation of Pnuemococcal Types.  Induction of Transformation by a Desoxyribonucleic Acid Fraction Isolated from Pneumococcus Type III” was published in the February 1944 Journal of Experimental Medicine.  This report demonstrated that DNA carried genetic information, that genes lay within DNA.  This report was the direct result of Avery’s years of research into the cause of the 1918 influenza pandemic.  This information inspired many scientists, including James Watson and Francis Crick to determine the structure of DNA.  Watson wrote in The Double Helix:  "Avery gave us the first text of a new language; or rather he showed us where to look for it.  I resolved to search for this text.”  Barry observes: “In fact, what Avery accomplished was a classic of basic science.  He started his search looking for a cure for pneumonia and ended up opening the field of Molecular Biology.”

The author concludes by warning that although medical science has made incredible strides, the stage could be set for another pandemic.  Overcrowding in urban areas, poor hygiene and sanitary conditions in third world countries (as well as American inner cities) and the “shrinking of the planet” by international travel all contribute to a situation where a virulent new virus, should it occur, could spread rapidly.  The severity of a pandemic similar to “The Great Influenza” would easily and quickly overwhelm the world’s medical system.  The World Health Organization has guidelines in place to accurately assess risk of new diseases and promptly respond to that risk.  These lessons learned from the 1918 experience are largely responsible for the quick identification and limitation of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a disease which spread from animals to man in the spring of 2003).  Barry warns, however, that “Every expert on influenza agrees that the ability of the influenza virus to re-assort genes means that another pandemic not only can happen, it almost certainly will happen.”

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry is an excellent book and a tremendous compilation of data and information on this timely subject.