The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919--the worst widespread outbreak in recorded history--claimed an estimated 100 million lives globally. Yet only in recent decades has it captured the attention of historians, scientists, and fiction writers. This study surveys influenza research over the last century in original scientific and historical documents and establishes a critical paradigm for the appreciation of influenza fiction. Through close readings of 15 imaginative works, the author elucidates the contents of and the interaction between the medical and the fictional. Coverage extends from Pfeiffer's 1892 bacillus theory, to the multidisciplinary effort to isolate the virus (1919-1933), to the reconstruction of the H1N1 viral genome from archival and exhumed RNA (1995-2005), to the emergence of H5N1 and H7N9 avian viruses (1997-2014).This book demonstrates that pandemic fiction has been more than a therapeutic medium for survivors. A prodigious resource for the history of medicine, it is also a forum for ethical, social, legal, national defense and public health issues.

Genesis of a Plague Right now, in a remote corner of rural China, a farmer and his family are sharing their water supply with their livestock: chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep. They share the same waste-disposal system, too. Bird viruses meet their human counterparts in the bloodstreams of the swine, where they mix and mutate before spreading back into the human population. And a new flu is born.... Dr. Noah Haldane, of the World Health Organization, knows that humanity is overdue for a new killer flu, like the great influenza pandemic of 1919 that killed more than twenty million people in less than four months. So when a mysterious new strain of flu is reported in the Gansu Province of mainland China, WHO immediately sends a team to investigate. Haldane and his colleagues soon discover that the new disease, dubbed Acute Respiratory Collapse Syndrome, is far more deadly than SARS, killing one in four victims, regardless of their age or health. But even as WHO struggles to contain the outbreak, ARCS is already spreading to Hong Kong, London, and even America. In an age when every single person in the world is connected by three commercial flights or fewer, a killer bug can travel much faster than the flu of 1919. Especially when someone is spreading the virus on purpose... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

En route to a conference, a physician from Jakarta boards a plane to the US. He does not know he is the index patient for the next global influenza pandemic. From this catalyst, thousands of people will get sick, hundreds of people will die. October Birds follows the healthcare and emergency management responders in the town of Dalton, Texas as they cope with the unfolding pandemic. Dr. Eliza Gordon, Chief Epidemiologist for the city struggles to control the outbreak and be a mother. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Ben Cromwell tries to maintain control of the increasing numbers of patients at Memorial Hospital, while Memorial's infection control specialist fights to limit the spread of the disease to the healthcare workers and the other patients. Dalton's emergency manager copes with an ever increasing logistical nightmare, and the incident commander tries to hold everything together. Meanwhile a currendera in the town searches for a cure. October Birds is grounded in real-life public health practice, sociological research, and emergency management. It is ‘a/r/tographical research,’ sociological inquiry within the science/art intersection. October Birds is more than a story – it is also a sociological theory of community-level response to health threats. This novel can be read as a supplementary text in a number of disciplines, including sociology, nursing, public health, health studies, emergency management, and psychology, and can be used in qualitative research methods courses as an example of arts-based research. I hope it will also be read simply for pleasure, and instill the question: ‘What if?’ What if a devastating pandemic does emerge? How will we respond? Social Fictions Series Editorial Advisory Board Carl Bagley, University of Durham, UK Anna Banks, University of Idaho, USA Carolyn Ellis, University of South Florida, USA Rita Irwin, University of British Columbia, Canada J. Gary Knowles, University of Toronto, Canada Laurel Richardson, The Ohio State University (Emeritus), USA Jessica Smartt Gullion, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Texas Woman’s University, where she teaches courses on medical sociology and qualitative research methods. Dr Gullion is the author of more than twenty peer-reviewed articles, in such journals as the International Review of Qualitative Research, the Journal of Applied Social Science, Qualitative Inquiry, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the Archives of Internal Medicine, and Clinical Infectious Diseases. Her research focuses on how communities cope with health threats.

With two brothers fighting in the Great War, Gemma Dorgan's life is filled with worries. But when the Spanish Flu hits Philadelphia, the Dorgan family faces their own battle at home. Gemma's mother is desperate to keep the family safe from influenza, but her father feels he must help provide care to the sick. Meanwhile, Gemma misses her friends terribly. Will Gemma and everyone she loves survive the great flu? Part of the Girls Survive Graphic Novel series, Gemma and the Great Flu brings a defining historical event to life.

Ellen Marie Wiseman, acclaimed author of What She Left Behind and The Life She Was Given, weaves the stories of two very different women into a page-turning novel as suspenseful as it is poignant, set amid one of history's deadliest pandemics. In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone . . . Since her baby died days ago, Bernice Groves has been lost in grief and bitterness. If doctors hadn't been so busy tending to hordes of immigrants, perhaps they could have saved her son. When Bernice sees Pia leaving her tenement across the way, she is buoyed by a shocking, life-altering decision that leads her on a sinister mission: to transform the city's orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are "true Americans." As Pia navigates the city's somber neighborhoods, she cannot know that her brothers won't be home when she returns. And it will be a long and arduous journey to learn what happened--even as Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost. Only with persistence, and the courage to face her own shame and fear, will Pia put the pieces together and find the strength to risk everything to see justice at last.

"In graphic novel format, follows the 1918 outbreak of a mysterious influenza virus that killed millions of people worldwide, making it the deadliest pandemic in history"--Provided by publisher.

From the Sibert Honor–winning creator behind The Unwanted and Drowned City comes one of the darkest episodes in American history: the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918. This nonfiction graphic novel explores the causes, effects, and lessons learned from a major epidemic in our past, and is the perfect tool for engaging readers of all ages, especially teens and tweens learning from home. New Year’s Day, 1918. America has declared war on Germany and is gathering troops to fight. But there’s something coming that is deadlier than any war. When people begin to fall ill, most Americans don’t suspect influenza. The flu is known to be dangerous to the very old, young, or frail. But the Spanish flu is exceptionally violent. Soon, thousands of people succumb. Then tens of thousands . . . hundreds of thousands and more. Graves can’t be dug quickly enough. What made the influenza of 1918 so exceptionally deadly—and what can modern science help us understand about this tragic episode in history? With a journalist’s discerning eye for facts and an artist’s instinct for true emotion, Sibert Honor recipient Don Brown sets out to answer these questions and more in Fever Year.