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GeoffreyW. Rice, BlackNovember:The 1918 InfluenzaPandemicin New Zealand, second edition, revised and enlarged. (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2005). ISBN 1-877257-35-4 (hardcover). 327 pp. Book Reviews In the space of nine months during 1918 and early 1919 the world was engulfed in a virulent pandemic of influenza that was widely but falsely labelled as 'Spanish' flu. The total deathrateis unknown but was probably 50 million, if not more. New Zealand, struck by the pandemic in late September 1918, suffered 8,573 deaths in the space of two months, the worst naturaldisaster in the nation's history. Two features stand out: Maori death rates (total of 2,160) were seven times higher than those for Pakeha; and young adults, especially men- those who would be thought to be the healthiest and strongest section of the population- suffered higher mortality than other age groups. Maori susceptibility to global diseases, like those of other Pacific peoples, was historically higher than those for Europeans and, in the case of flu, this was exacerbated by living in rural communities with poorer standards of housing and nutrition. In its wake, the flu virus left the widowed and orphaned to join the long train of grief with those mourning the killing fields of the Great War.The victims of four years of war, mainly younger men, were publicly acclaimed in memorials and their sacrifice commemorated by annual rites of national memory; for all those who died in the brief fatal visitation of flu, there were few memorials and only private sorrow. Geoffrey Rice's study, which first appeared in 1988, was distinguished not only because it addressed a disaster forgotten or at best marginalised by historians of New Zealand (indeed most historians everywhere!), but also by his pioneer use of all the death certificates of flu victims. His book, now republished in revised and amended form, will surely stand as the definitive national work on the flu pandemic, although as he suggests there is furtherwork for historians to do at the local level. This new edition takes account of the great increase in work that has been done on the pandemic over the past 15 years. Today, thanks to research by historians, epidemiologists, and virologists, we know much more about the Health&History, 2007.9/1 155 156 BOOKREVIEWS possible origin, outbreak, and diffusion on a global scale of flu in 1918-19. And all this new data and information is of great value in a world made all the more conscious that, since the outbreakof avian flu in 1997, anothersimilar pandemic is likely to occur in the near future. This is a splendidly produced book with numerous black and white illustrations, tables, and charts.The many personal accounts, highlighted in the text, by those who experienced New Zealand's 'Black November' emphasise thatthe pandemic intimately touched and scarred the lives of individual men, women, and children. Chapters one and two are new, the first placing the pandemic in the context of what was known about influenza before 1918, and the second firmly relating the 1918-19 outbreak to the context of the First World War. Rice argues that this war, thought by many contemporaries to have been largely responsible for the virulent influenza, was indeed a significant contributorto the pandemic. He claims it did so in two ways: by bringing together large numbersof men in over-crowded and often unsanitaryconditions ideal for the communication of a respiratorydisease, andthe co-incidence of the virus with the use of mustardgas in trenchwarfare.Tothis might be added the recent research by John Oxford and Robert Brown who suggest thatinfluenza was present in Francein largemilitarycamps such as Etaples in 1916-17, and the thesis of ChristopherLangford thatthe Chinese LabourCorps had broughtthe infection to Europe and, stationed adjacentto thatlarge camp and also close to aquatic birds, they helped spreadthe virus to Allied soldiers. A furthernew final chapter sketches the development of influenza virology since 1918 anddetails recentresearchby JeffreyTaubenbergerandothers to identify the virus thatcaused the catastrophicoutbreakatthe end of the GreatWar.History is always revisionist, and this is so in the case of the historical epidemiology of influenza. Since this book appeared furtherimportant strides have been made to capture the entire genome...

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