Unit 8Section 2 Epidemics

"[A]s the First World War came to an end, an extraordinarily lethal strain of influenza swept the globe, killing between twenty and forty million people. More Americans died of the flu over the next months than were killed during the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. The Spanish flu, as it came to be known, reached every continent and virtually every country on the map, going wherever ships sailed or cars or trucks or trains traveled, killing so many so quickly that some cities were forced to convert streetcars into hearses, and others buried their dead in mass graves, because they ran out of coffins." Malcom Gladwell From “The Dead Zone,” The New Yorker September 29, 2007

This section explores the physical and psychological effects of epidemics on individuals and groups and society's methods of coping with disaster.