Waiting for the flu: Cognitive inertia and the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

Volumn 70, Issue 2, 2015, Pages 195-217

  Dicke, Tom ^a  

^a MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Cognitive inertia; Epidemic; Influenza; Newspapers; Pandemic; Public health emergency; Spanish flu

Indexed keywords

ATTITUDE TO HEALTH; AWARENESS; HISTORY; HUMAN; INFLUENZA PANDEMIC, 1918-1919; PREVENTIVE HEALTH SERVICE; PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE; UNITED STATES;

AWARENESS; HEALTH KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDES, PRACTICE; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; INFLUENZA PANDEMIC, 1918-1919; PREVENTIVE HEALTH SERVICES; PUBLIC HEALTH PRACTICE; UNITED STATES;

EID: 84941957620     PISSN: 00225045     EISSN: 14684373     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jru019     Document Type: Review

References (113)

1. "Physicians to Meet", Springfield Missouri Daily Republican
2. [hereafter cited as SMDR] September 28, 1918, 9.
3. See Michael Schudson, The Power of News (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), Chapter 1, for a brief but perceptive overview of the importance of newspapers in American society. As of the summer of 2013, the Library of Congress historic newspapers collection (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) contained over one hundred and twenty-five thousand pages from 174 newspapers covering some portion 1918. These papers contained well over ten thousand pages with at least one mention of the word "influenza."
4. This collection was searched using a variety of keywords. For an interesting report of an alternative search method, see E. Thomas Ewing, Samah Gad, and Naren Ramakrishnan, "Gaining Insights into Epidemics by Mining Historical Newspapers", Computer, June 2013, 46, 68-72
5. or E. Thomas Ewing, Samah Gad, Bernice L. Hausman, Kathleen Kerr, Bruce Pencek, and Naren Ramakrishnan, "Mining Coverage of the Flu: Big Data's Insights into an Epidemic", Persp. Hist., January 2014, 28-31.
6. See, for example, Alfred W. Crosby, America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, 2nd ed. (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 48-49.
7. (Originally published as Epidemic and Peace, 1918 [Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1976])
8. or John M. Barry, The Great Influenza the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), 218-19 and 333-38.
9. See Jonathan Baron, Thinking and Deciding, 4th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 203-11
10. for a good overview. Beginning in the 1990s, organizational psychologists and strategic management researchers began to apply the concept of cognitive inertia to the study of managerial failures. See: Mary Tripsas and Giovanni Gavetti, "Capabilities, Cognition, and Inertia: Evidence from Digital Imaging", Strategic Manage. J., 2000, 21, 1147-61
11. for an interesting case study and Gerard P. Hodgkinson and Paul R. Sparrow, The Competent Organization (Buckingham, UK: Open University Press, 2002), 1-3 and 140-44, for a good summary of the literature.
12. See, for example: "Prevent Spread of Influenza", The Evening Missourian [Columbia, Missouri], September 20, 1918, 4. 6.
13. "Spanish Influenza Is Coming", The Ogden [Utah] Standard, September 27, 1918, 4.
14. See also: Nancy K. Bristow, American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 108-17.
15. "F. D. Roosevelt Has Pneumonia after Influenza Attack";
16. "Influenza Causes 48 Deaths in Day in New England";
17. datelines "Newport, R. I., Sept. 19"
18. and "Great Lakes, Ill. Sept 19";
19. "In Low Gear", 3.
20. See "Protect New York against Asiatic Cholera", The Day Book [Chicago] September 29, 1914, 31
21. for a typical news report, or "Asiatic Cholera Reaches All Lands and Kill Victims Quickly", El Paso Herald, January 16, 1911, 6, for a typical informational story.
22. More generally, see Margaret Humphreys, "No Safe Place: Disease and Panic in American History", Am. Lit. Hist., 2002, 845-57
23. or Alan Kraut, Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the "Immigrant Menace" (New York: Basic, 1994).
24. For sample jokes and puns, see: "The Lansdowne Letter", New York Tribune, February 17, 1918, 5;
25. "The time has passed...." The Bourbon New [Paris, Kentucky], February 22, 1918, 2;
26. "Bob Got Influenza", [ad] The Coconino Sun [Flagstaff, Arizona], April 5, 1918, 5;
27. "Winter", New York Tribune, July 1, 1918, 14;
28. "Medical Notes", Evening Public Ledger [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], July 9, 1918, night extra, 10;
29. Arthur "Bugs"
30. Baer, "When the Harvest Moon Is Twinkling", The Evening World [New York], August 28, 1918, final ed., 10;
31. "The Spanish Influenza...." The Central Record [Lancaster, Kentucky], September 26, 1918, 7.
32. "Topics of the Times", New York Times, September 27, 1918, 2.
33. H. B. Lipmann and H. Markel, "Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Implemented by US Cities during the 1918-1919 Influenza Pandemic", J. Am. Med. Assoc., August 8, 2007, 298, 644-54, looked at the public health response in forty-three cities and conclude that early and sustained efforts to fight the flu saved lives.
34. For details of the civic response in these and seven additional cities, see: http://www.influenzaarchive.org/index.html.
35. There is a vast literature on the Spanish flu. The work that did the most to reawaken scholarly interest in the flu is: Crosby, America's Forgotten Pandemic. Among the best recent treatments are: Dorothy Pettit and Janice Bailie, A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920 (Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Timberlane Books, 2008);
36. Carol R. Byerly, Fever of War: The Influenza Epidemic in the U. S. Army during World War I (New York: New York University Press, 2005);
37. John M. Barry, The Great Influenza the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (New York: Penguin Books, 2004)
38. and Gina Kolata, Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Girioux, 1999).
39. For a global perspective, see: The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918-19 New Perspectives, Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine 12 (London; New York: Routledge, 2003).
40. For a good brief summary of the debates over the origins of the flu, see: John M. Barry, "The Site of Origin of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic and Its Public Health Implications", J. Transl. Med., 2004, 2, 3, available at: http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/2/1/3
41. and Pettit and Bailie, ACruel Wind, 230-35.
42. Pettit and Bailie, ACruel Wind, 37-76.
43. Crosby, America's Forgotten Pandemic, 37-40.
44. Peter J. Hugill, World Trade since 1431 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 127-28.
45. K. David Patterson and Gerald F. Pyle, "The Geography and Mortality of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic", Bull. Hist. Med., 1991, 65, 4-21.
46. For a clear and accessible description of the influenza virus and explanation of antigenic drift and shift, see: Landis MacKellar, "Pandemic Influenza: A Review", Popul. Dev. Rev., September 2007, 33, 429-51.
47. Bristow, American Pandemic, 44-45.
48. Foster Rhea Dulles, The American Red Cross: A History (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), 87 and 151.
49. For the response in fifty U. S. cities, see: http://www.influenzaarchive.org/index.html.
50. Bristow, American Pandemic, 4.
51. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
52. and Oxford English Dictionary list the first known recorded use of "influenza" in 1743 and "Grippe" in the 1770s.
53. For a good overview of the flu, see: http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/flu/understandingflu/.
54. Kolata, Flu, 63-64.
55. For conflicting attitudes about the cause of influenza, see: Richard Cole Newton, "How We Can All Avoid the 'Grippe'", Ladies Home J., October 1908, 25, 34 [bad air, closed spaces]
56. and Emelyn Lincoln Coolidge, "The Sick Child-Influenza or Grip", Ladies Home J., November 1909, 26, 68 [micro-organism].
57. The Big Stone Gap [Virginia] Post, January 2, 1918, 1.
58. The Highland [County, Ohio] Weekly News, April 27, 1882, 7.
59. The Bemidji [Minnesota] Daily Pioneer, February 8, 1918, 6.
60. The Evening World [New York], February 12, 1918, 10.
61. "This Horrid May", Springfield [Ohio] Daily Republic, May 5, 1888, 8 (poem);
62. "True Humility", The Washington [DC] Times, December 15, 1895, 17 (cartoon).
63. See, for example, "Pacific Coast Items", Sacramento Daily Record-Union, February 18, 1885, 3;
64. "Epidemic of Influenza Feared", New York Tribune, January 20, 1906, 11.
65. See, for example, "No Let-Up in Influenza", St. Paul Globe, March 17, 1895, 6.
66. See, for example, "Treatment of Epizootic Influenza", The Weekly Kansas Chief [Troy, Kansas] November 25, 1880, 4;
67. "Pinkeye", The Iola [Kansas] Register, July 13, 1883, 6
68. "Causes of Influenza", Truth [Salt Lake City, Utah], April 28, 1906, 11.
69. Barry, The Great Influenza, 90-97.
70. Public Health Reports, March 22, 1918, 33, 579.
71. See, for example: "Pneumonia Claims Lives of 121 Soldiers", Evening Public Ledger, [Philadelphia], April 4, 1918, postscript ed., 7
72. or "237 Deaths in Week in Army Camps Here", New York Tribune, April 5, 1918, 6;
73. "Report to Surgeon General Shows Health Conditions Good in Army Camps", Warren [Minnesota] Sheaf, April 17, 1918, 4;
74. "The Health of Troops", Perrysburg [Ohio] J., April 25, 1918, 6.
75. Heywood Broun, "French Render First Aid to Our Unprepared Army", New York Tribune, January 10, 1918, 1.
76. "Pershing Is Busy Weeding Out Physically Unfit, Incompetent", El Paso Herald, February 26, 1918, Home ed., 5.
77. The Washington [DC] Herald, May 27, 2.
78. Evening Public Ledger [Philadelphia], night extra, 4.
79. The Bemidji [Minnesota] Daily Pioneer, May 28, 1.
80. "Mysterious Disease Sweeps North China", The Evening World [New York City] final ed., 4;
81. "City Feels Blight of Spanish Grip", The Sun [New York City] June 2, 1918, 2.
82. See, for example, "Blame U-Boats for Epidemic", Evening Public Ledger [Philadelphia], May 30, 1918, night extra, 1.
83. New York Tribune, June 17, 1918, 3.
84. Bisbee [Arizona] Daily Review, June 27, 1918, 3.
85. The Sun, June 29, 1918, 1.
86. See, for example, "Quiet on All Fronts Says A. P. Review", Bisbee [Arizona] Daily Review, June 30, 1918, 1.
87. See, for example, "Influenza Epidemic Delays German Drive", The Sun, June 27, 1918, 1.
88. "Plague Spreads", The Tacoma [Washington] Times, June 3, 1918, 3;
89. "Influenza Epidemic Is Sweeping Britain", June 22, 1918, 4;
90. "From Trench and Camp", The Evening Missourian [Columbia], June 28, 1918, 4;
91. "Epidemic in Porto Rico", The Washington [DC] Herald, July 1, 1918, 1;
92. "Influenza in Oahu Camps", The Maui News, July 5, 1918, 5.
93. See, for example, "Influenza Now Allies' Bogy", Evening Public Ledger [Philadelphia], July 8, 1918, 5;
94. "Influenza Epidemic Attacks England", The Sun, July 1, 1918, 1;
95. "Nature Herself Seems to Tire of War and Bloodshed." The Washington [DC] Times, July 2, 1918, final ed., 1;
96. "The Spanish Epidemic of Influenza and Its War Aspects", The Sun, July 9, 1918, 8.
97. "U. S. Guards against 'Spanish Influenza'", The Corpus Christi Caller, July 3, 1918, 4.
98. Springfield City Directory, 1918.
99. Honor Roll of Greene County Missouri (Chicago: Faithhorn Company, 1919), 28.
100. "Influenza Breaks Out in American Destroyer Base", Springfield Missouri Daily Republican (SMDR), August 22, 1918, 5.
101. "Army Surgeon Advises as to Spanish Influenza", 4.
102. "No Spanish Flu Is Reported Here", Daily Leader (DL), September 14, 1918, 1.
103. "Epidemics of Disease in Armies and among Nations Controlled By Quarantine", DL, 5;
104. "Spanish Influenza Can Be Controlled by Correct Quarantining", September 15, 1918, 14;
105. "Necessary Precautions Will Check and Prevent Spread of Bad Epidemic", September 18, 1918, 6.
106. "Surgeon General Pleased With Health of Soldiers", SMDR.
107. "Spanish Influenza Makes Appearance in 25 Camps", SMDR.
108. "Influenza Epidemic in Believed Nearing End" [sic];
109. Hershel N. Martin, "Dies of Pneumonia", SMDR.
110. Barry, The Great Influenza, 201-2.
111. "Hershel Martin to Arrive Today", SMDR, September 24, 1918, 6.
112. "Massachusetts Alarmed at Spread of Influenza."
113. "Dr. Glen Miller Dies at Morrisville", DL, September 30, 1918, 2.