The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.50 (866 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 1442641118 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 348 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-09-15 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
A wonderful book. Sandra Tomc An excellent piece of scholarship and great story about the Spanish Flu in Canada. It reveals many heretofore unknown details about how the flu travelled and who it tended to strike.
Mark Osborne Humphries is an assistant professor in the Department of History at Memorial University of Newfoundland.
‘This fine book chillingly dissects the disease as it burned through Canada as Well as the failed attempts by authorities to stop it.’ (Tim Cook Canada's History, Aug-Sept 2013)‘A superbly written work that demonstrates the possibilities of both quantitative and qualitative research, this engaging book deserves a wide readership among those with interest in the history of the pandemic, the First World War, and the social and political history of medicine and public health.’ (Nancy Bristow Social History of Medicine, August 2013)‘Well researched and argumentatively coherent, this is one of those rare books that will please readers of disparate interests.’ (Chris Dooley Labour/Le Travail, vol 73 2014)‘Humphries makes a significant contribution to scholarship of the 1918 influenza epidemic in Canada with this book, a fine example of the masterful harnessing of primary sources and statistics to debunk old narratives and present refreshing new perspectives.’ (Jane Jenkins Canadian Bulletin of Medical History vol 3101:2014)
In spite of the best efforts of both federal and local officials, up to fifty thousand Canadians died.In The Last Plague, Mark Osborne Humphries examines how federal epidemic disease management strategies developed before the First World War, arguing that the deadliest epidemic in Canadian history ultimately challenged traditional ideas about disease and public health governance. His provocative conclusion is that the 1918 flu crisis had important long-term consequences at the national level, ushering in the ‘modern’ era of public health in Canada.. But the 1918 flu was a different type of disease. Using federal, provincial, and municipal archival sources, newspapers, and newly discovered military records – as well as original epidemiological studies – Humphries' sweeping national study situates the flu within a larger social, political, and military context for the first time. Canadian federal public health officials tried to prevent the disease from entering the country by implementing a maritime quarantine, as had been their standard practice since the cholera epidemics of 1832. The ‘Spanish’ influenza of 1918 was the deadliest pandemic in history, killing as