A Modern Plague

摘要

For anyone who thinks of influenza as a biomedical problem with biomedical solutions, there is a lesson to be learned from Laura Spinney's book on the 1918 flu pandemic, Pale Rider: anthropology is a tool to be used to understand why disease control methods are not accepted by communities, and understanding anthropology-and the associated socioeconomic impact of pandemics-is just as much an integral aspect of the control of influenza as is the provision of antiviral drugs and vaccines. Combining epidemiology, anthropology, and meticulously researched evidence, Spinney documents the so-called Spanish flu, underscoring the impact the disease had on the world as it was in the early twentieth century, and how that has influenced and shaped modern history and science. The 1918 pandemic is still used today as a benchmark for the potential of novel influenza viruses- those flu viruses that enter humans by breaching the species barrier between the animal and human kingdoms.