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Reviewed by:
  • Epidemic Encounters: Influenza, Society and Culture in Canada, 1918–20 ed. by Magda Fahrni and Esyllt W. Jones
  • Paul Hackett (bio)
Magda Fahrni and Esyllt W. Jones, eds. Epidemic Encounters: Influenza, Society and Culture in Canada, 1918–20. University of British Columbia Press. x, 292. $95.00

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Medical historians have long recognized the importance of exploring past epidemics as a means of understanding those of the future. Over the past century the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918–19 has been unrivalled in this respect. Much of this exploration has centred on understanding its epidemiology and the interplay between microbiology and immunology, considered essential in this present era of increasing pandemic risk. Breaking from this, in Epidemic Encounters editors Magda Fahrni and Esyllt W. Jones have assembled nine essays examining the social and cultural dimensions of the pandemic as it left its mark on the people of Canada. The thematic scope here is considerable; comprehensiveness is out of the question, but the selection is more than enough to showcase the excellent scholarship in this area.

The book is comprised of four sections, each, save one, with multiple essays loosely bound by a common theme. Part 1 explores public responses to the epidemic, as Mark Osborne Humphries examines the evolving relationship between the public, public health officials, and the military, whose interests sometimes coincided and sometimes conflicted. Linda Quiney takes on the politics of nursing during the epidemic, and the clash between professional nurses and a volunteer class of female caregivers, while Fahrni provides a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts and attitudes of the citizens of Montreal with regard to public health measures, illuminated through an analysis of letters written to municipal authorities.

In part 2 the focus shifts to more familiar ground, as three meticulously researched papers investigate geographical and social variations in the occurrence and impact of the disease. Ann Herring, a pioneer in the study of the epidemic, and Ellen Korol mine the death registry for the city of Hamilton to limn the socially engendered geographical patterns of mortality in the city, which show higher rates among the working class of the north than in the affluent south. Karen Slonim introduces us to the concept of syndemics in her analysis of differential mortality between two First Nations communities in Manitoba. Francis Dubois, Jean-Pierre Thouez, and Denis Goulet track the diffusion of the disease and the geographical variation of the epidemic across Quebec, as we learn that the heaviest mortalities were experienced in urban areas.

The two essays of part 3 are linked by a consideration of the epidemic’s place with respect to modernity. Mary-Ellen Kelm deconstructs articles from contemporary newspapers, recent interviews with non-Aboriginal survivors, and, perhaps most important, stories she collected from First Nations witnesses. Her analysis suggests that the narrative of modernity played a significant role only in the newspaper accounts, which confi-dently asserted that the disease would be defeated by modern medicine. Jones’s contribution takes a different approach to the question of modernity. She follows the enthralling story of the Hamiltons, one of Winnipeg’s [End Page 499] elite families, who turned to spiritualism in the throes of grief caused by the loss of a son to the epidemic, which in this context was decidedly not modern.

Finally, in part 4, Heather MacDougall compares the public health response to Spanish influenza in Toronto to that seen in the same city as part of a more recent global epidemic, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), in 2003. The discussion is absorbing, and it is disappointing to learn that the committed response to the Spanish influenza was soon forgotten by the public and government alike. The provincial funding regime of 2003, focused on cutting taxes, and a lack of coordination and communication between different levels of government left the city poorly prepared when SARS struck with little warning. The inadequacies of the public health system and the voice of historians, we learn, subsequently helped put in place new mechanisms that have better prepared the city, and the country, for epidemics to come.

History does not need the present for relevance. It stands alone, and its lessons are crucial...

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