Previous Pandemics! Influenza! How the Flu Changed History by Barbara Krasner

September 18, 1918: Nineteen-year-old Reuben Law boarded a ship in New York... bound for France. Law was a soldier. The U.S. had joined World War I in 1917. Two days into the journey Law wrote into his journal that he felt weak. He was in a state of delirium. Law had the Spanish Flu.

This so-called Spanish Flu did not actually begin in Spain, but it spread rapidly through soldiers living in close quarters and then to the civilians in Europe and subsequently to most parts of the world. Fifty million people died before 1920, far more than the number of battlefield casualties in World War I.

But even in 1918, influenza was not new to the world. The first identified epidemic was in 1510, and it appeared again in 1580, spreading throughout the world in a mere six weeks. The so-called Russian Flu in 1889 killed over a million people. In the period following the pandemic flu of 1918, scientists began to study the disease.

It was determined that iinfluenza was caused, not by a bacterium like TB, but by a virus which could be shared easily between humans and other mammals. The virus itself was isolated in the 1930s, and in 1938 Dr. Jonas Salk (famed for his polio vaccine) developed a working flu vaccine that was given broadly to military inductees during World War II. However, after the war scientists discovered that there were two types of flu that affected humans, named Types A and B, and after some additional research they learned that there were several strains of both A and B, making it more difficult to predict which combinations would be effective in any given year. In more recent years it was learned that influenza strains develop in both swine and bird populations, and it can then spread to all parts of the world rapidly.

Since the 1918 pandemic, there have been other deadly outbreaks of influenza--the H2N2 influenza in 1957 which killed three million people in its first five months, the H2N2 "Hong Kong" flu which killed one million, and the 1976 "Swine Flu," during which 40 million Americans were hurriedly vaccinated. A mistake in one manufacturer's vaccine created a "flu shot scare" which caused severe neurological symptoms in a small number of cases, causing the formation of the World Health Organization to assume oversight of the manufacture of vaccines.

Given that the current pandemic of COVID-19 is spread as an aerosol through the air in exactly the same way as influenza, author Barbara Krasner's Influenza: How the Flu Changed History (Infected!) (Capstone Press) should be practically required reading for middle elementary and middle school students. Very thorough in portraying some of the drama of the 1918 Flu, this slim volume also traces the history of influenza epidemics and the scientific background for precautions such a quarantine, closures of public spaces, handwashing, and masks first required in that unforgettable time, as well as subsequent epidemics, as well as the development of vaccines and the public health agencies that oversee the control of this sometime deadly disease. With ample photos, fact boxes, "Fast Facts" and other inserts,  a glossary, bibliography, and index, and a very readable font and short chapters, this well-written informational book  provides a basic understanding of the nature of influenza and the personal and social effects of pandemics for middle readers.