America's Forgotten Pandemic is truly terrifying. The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more people than the bubonic plague; in the U.S., 670,000 people died in 15 months. When you read of the great numbers of people dying, whole families succumbing, shortages of coffins, it’s nearly unbelievable.
All of this is set against the backdrop of the Great War in which people and cities did not want to appear unpatriotic. Americans turned out in scores for Liberty Loan parades. Young men were crammed into training camps and then troop transports, allowing the disease to spread like wildfire. This influenza rapidly reduced people to corpses after their first symptoms.
The whole thing snowballed as people were ill and did not report to work. Therefore, fewer police officers are on duty, the garbage piles up because trash collectors are sick, and medical personnel are becoming ill, leaving few people to care for the stricken. People grew so fearful they refused pleas to take in children whose parents had died.
Most disturbing was that this epidemic disproportionately struck down healthy young adults, the group that is usually most able to shake off an illness.
The first part of the book describes the three waves of the outbreak. The later chapters are less interesting unless you love discussions of bacteria and lab experiments.