Purple Death : The Mysterious Flu of 1918
Gr 3-6-This medical history begins by describing how the influenza of 1918 spread across the world, infecting 2 billion people and killing 20 to 40 million. Once symptoms began, death could take place within three hours, mostly from lack of oxygen that caused victims to turn purple when their lungs filled with blood due to the virus. The second half of the book is devoted to the efforts of scientists, once the pandemic subsided, to determine its cause. In 1918, no one had a microscope powerful enough to see a virus. Finding a sample of it was a challenge, and in 1951 scientists went to Alaska and Norway where diseased bodies were buried and preserved in permafrost. The author successfully relays the significance this epidemic had upon the world and the importance of continued study to prevent another occurrence. Black-and-white photographs enforce the reality of the crisis and soft, charcoal-pencil drawings capture the somber mood. The format of the book features large, inviting print with lots of white space on quality paper. The painstaking and heroic deeds scientists must take on in order to identify a disease and develop a cure will be interesting to budding scientists.-Jean Gaffney, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library, Miamisburg, OHCopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.