279 A Book for Pandemic Questions

A Book for Your PANDEMIC Questions

OH! NO! You just rolled your eyes. Yet another blog about the pandemic. Yes, but I promise you it’s a little different. I have found the book for us all to read. 

It should be required reading as dictated by someone with more authority and clout than I have. Maybe Dr. Fauci? It’s one of those books that makes you say: “YOU GOTTA READ THIS!” If not word for word, read this for reasoning, for research, and for explanations of how it is all entwined.

Goodness. Amazon loves me. My indulgence just for me is buying books online. Two days, usually, and I have the ordered books at my door. I have read lots and lots of mysteries. Caught up with all the J.D. Robb and Stuart Woods books. Bought a couple of Wooster and Jeeves anthologies and now I am reading the romance series of the Bridgerton family because we don’t get this on DIRECTV. [No, we don’t have Netflix anymore. We had a billing issue with them and we already had Amazon Prime anyway.]

Along with these “light reading” books, I am attempting to catch up with Civil War Virginians (many of whose thoughts now appall me), Black History, the Vietnam War, and the Chicago 7 (one member went to high school with me). I am also absolutely entranced by Henry Louis Gates and his books as well as his TV show “Finding Your Roots.” He’s delightful and smart, and he grew up in Keyser, WV and has taught at Yale, Harvard, Cornell, Duke among others, and has won oodles of awards. (skim the Wikipedia article for further details.) Watch his show for amazing stories.

BUT THIS IS THE BOOK! My new focus for the “heavy reading” is the history of pandemics. Epidemics and Society: from the Black Death to the Present, by Frank M. Snowden, Yale University Press, 2020. Yes, it is thick and scholarly-looking but he writes well and it reads quickly. I stay up far too late for just one more chapter! It has a thirty-page bibliography (he’s done his research) and an extraordinarily detailed index. It is fascinating. I recommend it. 

Snowden says in his preface: “The goal is not to reach specialists in relevant fields, but rather to encourage discussion among general readers and students with an interest in the history of epidemic diseases and a concern about our preparedness as a society to meet new microbial challenges.” (Snowden, xiii) Starting with the bubonic plague--I think perhaps everyone’s worst case scenario--and ending with the Coronavirus, Snowden moves with fascinating details from the fourteenth century to 2021.

I believe that these two anecdotes sold me. During the Napoleonic period, Bonaparte sent a great military force to the Caribbean colony of Saint-Dominique in 1802. He wanted to “restore slavery” and impose French rule in the colony. However, Napoleon’s forces were destroyed, literally, by a virulent epidemic of yellow fever. The army’s devastation led to a historical chain of events. Haiti gained its foothold and independence.  

The French losses in men and political power ultimately led to the Louisiana Purchase. Well, this was surely a learning curve for me! Let’s stay with Napoleon just for a sentence or two more. By 1812, Bonaparte thought he had amassed the greatest military force ever to invade Russia. However, the troops were annihilated not by men and guns but by typhus and dysentery, and weather. Napoleon‘s army was essentially destroyed and the geopolitical balance of power was forever changed. After losing over 300,000 men, 70,000 in one day at the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon could no longer expect to march from a victory in Russia across Europe. The emperor found himself exiled to Elba.

Now, I may gross out a few of you, but I found cholera fascinating. Cholera has had seven pandemics all by itself starting in 1817 in Asia, in the 1830s through 1875 in Europe and North America, in the 1880s to 1923 in Asia and Europe, and finally from 1961 to the present in various places in Asia, South America, and Africa. British colonialism as troops and trade moved, then a Haj to Mecca, and most importantly the transport revolution of railroads, steamships, and the Suez Canal caused the various outbreaks. Cholera thrived in the unplanned urbanizations and crowded slums with poor water supplies and no sewers. The epidemics that arose caused people to say “The Plague has returned.” 

There was such fear that Snowden lists the reactions: “mass flight, riots, social hysteria, scapegoating, and economic disruption.” (p. 235) Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But cholera has a fearsome description: pneumonia, meningitis, uremia, and gangrene of the extremities. Blood is so dense it no longer circulates, acid enemas were tried, sulfur bonfires, and the list goes on. Surprisingly, governmental policies helped: the distribution of blankets, food, and medicines along with isolation facilities for the ill and the banning of group gatherings. Again, sounding familiar. (pp. 233 – 238)

If I keep on with all the gory details, you will never finish this blog or read my blog again. It will not be long before Trish and Frances will tell me to “get a grip.” Often, we compare this siege of COVID with the flu of 1918. Check out this graph; it tells enough.

WashPostArchives and ohiohistory.org/Googleimages

Since most of us were alive for the polio and HIV/AIDS pandemics, I will now race to the present. According to Snowden: “Unpreparedness to face the challenges of epidemic diseases despite the warnings” and “treatment of health as a commodity in the market rather than a human right” are the causes of our downfalls. (p. 502) Thus, COVID.

For those seriously concerned about our health system and its geopolitical ramifications, I really (and rarely) exclaim over a book, but this one is so far-reaching and so readable, it’s worth buying. It has been chosen, by the way, for the Open Yale Courses Series. (Amazon has it on sale for $17.51!)

Winchester Star photo

And applause to all our medical heroes and frontline essential workers and to Valley Health, Lord Fairfax Health District, and Shenandoah University for bringing the COVID vaccine to our hometown.

Stay well! Glenne