Dragon Harper

AUTHORS’ NOTES

According to the Merck Manual, Eighteenth Edition, (Copyright 2006 by Merck & Co, Inc.) influenza A epidemics occur in the United States every two to three years. “Pandemics caused by new influenza A serotypes may cause particularly severe disease.” Influenza B viruses can cause epidemics in three-to five-year cycles.

The Great Influenza of 1918 was a pandemic of grimmer proportions than either the usual influenza A or B epidemic/pandemic cycles. It was particularly devastating among the eighteen-to twenty-one-year-old population because, sadly, people at those ages had the most well-developed immune systems. In combating the influenza, the matured immune systems would attack the lining of the lungs and, tragically, the victim’s lungs would fill with liquid, causing death by drowning (more specifically, Acute Respiratory Disease Syndrome or ARDS—SARS is a variant of this).

For more information on major influenza pandemics, we recommend The Great Influenza by John M. Barry, published by Penguin Books, 2005 (with a new afterword).