The Great Influenza (70 page)

'sagacity and judgment':
Ibid., 4.

still seen as a manifestation:
Charles Rosenberg, 'The Therapeutic Revolution,' in
Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine
(1992), 13/14.

natural healing process:
Ibid., 9/27, passim.

'profuse perspiration':
Benjamin Coates practice book, quoted in ibid., 17.

never had a peaceful bath again:
Steven Rosenberg in personal communication to the author.

'withered arm of science':
Quoted in Richard Shryock,
American Medical Research
(1947), 7.

Michel Foucault condemned:
John Harley Warner,
Against the Spirit of the System: The French Impulse in Nineteenth-Century American Medicine
(1998), 4.

'The practice of medicine':
Ibid., 183/84.

'Why think?':
See Richard Walter,
S. Weir Mitchell, M.D., Neurologist: A Medical Biography
(1970), 202/22.

'Nature answers only':
Winslow,
Conquest of Epidemic Disease,
296.

'if all disease were left to itself':
Quoted in Paul Starr,
The Social Transformation of American Medicine
(1982), 55.

In 1862 in Philadelphia:
Charles Rosenberg,
Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine
(1992), 14.

'popular crafts of every description': Thomsonian Recorder
(1832), 89; quoted in Charles Rosenberg,
The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849, and 1866
(1962), 70/71.

'False theory and hypothesis':
John Harley Warner, 'The Fall and Rise of Professional Mystery,' in
The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine
(1992), 117.

'priests' and Doctors' slavery':
Quoted in Rosenberg,
Cholera Years,
70/71.

'a greater humbug':
John King, 'The Progress of Medical Reform,'
Western Medical Reformer
(1846); quoted in Warner, 'The Fall and Rise of Professional Mystery,' 113.

only thirty-four licensed physicians:
Burton J. Bledstein,
The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America
(1976), 33.

'the Diminished Respectability':
Shryock,
Development of Modern Medicine,
264.

court-martialed and condemned:
Ludmerer,
Learning to Heal,
10, 11, 23, 168.

not to treat malaria:
Rosenberg, 'The Therapeutic Revolution,' 9/27, passim.

'all the worse for the fishes':
Bledstein,
Culture of Professionalism,
33.

'a vast deal to be done':
Quoted in Donald Fleming,
William Welch and the Rise of American Medicine
(1954), 8.

7,000 to 226,000:
Edwin Layton,
The Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession
(1971), 3.

fail four of nine courses:
Ludmerer,
Learning to Heal,
37 (re: Harvard), 12 (re: Michigan).

'truths that lie about me so thick':
Quoted in ibid., 25.

not know how to use a microscope:
Ibid., 37.

'something horrible to contemplate':
Ibid., 48.

'can't pass written examinations':
Bledstein,
Culture of Professionalism,
275/76.

'No medical school has thought':
Ludmerer,
Learning to Heal,
15.

'simply horrible':
Ibid., 25.

Against the advice:
James Thomas Flexner,
An American Saga: The Story of Helen Thomas and Simon Flexner
(1984), 125; see also ibid., 294.

'strongest evidence of this demand':
Benjamin Gilman, quoted in Flexner,
American Saga,
125.

CHAPTER TWO

eightieth-birthday celebration:
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
3/8, passim.

fifteen hundred stores:
Ezra Brown, ed.,
This Fabulous Century, The Roaring Twenties 1920/1930
(1985), 105, 244.

'beyond the capacity of an individual parent':
Quoted in Sue Halpern, 'Evangelists for Kids,'
New York Review of Books
(May 29, 2003), 20.

work of Rudolph Virchow:
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
33.

'accurate observation of facts':
Ibid.

filled him with repugnance:
Ibid., 29.

begged his cousins:
Fleming,
William Welch,
15.

'every noble and good quality':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
50.

'the light of his own mind':
Quoted in ibid., 49.

'the labyrinths of Chemistry':
Ibid., 62/63.

scientists had met in Berlin:
Shryock,
Development of Modern Medicine,
206.

'I can only admire':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
64, see also 71.

'the easiest examination':
Ibid, 62.

'a voyage of exploration':
Ibid., 76.

fifteen thousand American doctors:
Thomas Bonner,
American Doctors and German Universities: A Chapter in International Intellectual Relations, 1870/1914
(1963), 23.

'those who have studied abroad':
Welch to father, March 21, 1876, WP.

'a source of pleasure and profit':
Welch to stepmother, March 26, 1877, WP.

'Germany has outstripped':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
83.

'certain important methods':
Welch to father, Oct. 18, 1876, WP.

'carry on investigations hereafter':
Welch to father, Feb. 25, 1877, WP.

'observe closely and carefully':
Welch to father, Oct. 18, 1876, WP.

'He is almost the founder':
Welch to father, Sept. 23, 1877, WP.

'The facts of science':
Quoted in Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
87.

'constantly astonished at the wealth of experience':
Quoted in Shryock,
Development of Modern Medicine,
181/82.

'the greatest and most useful':
Quoted in ibid., 182.

'the first men to be secured':
Quoted in Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
93.

'a modest livelihood':
Ibid., 106.

'cannot make much of a success':
Ibid., 112.

'the drudgery of life':
Ibid.

CHAPTER THREE

'leak knowledge':
Ibid., 70.

'a larger circle of hearers':
Quoted in ibid., 117.

'poisoning of half the population':
John Duffy,
A History of Public Health in New York City 1866/1966
(1974), 113.

the zymote theory:
For more on zymotes see Phyllis Allen Richmond, 'Some Variant Theories in Opposition to the Germ Theory of Disease,'
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
(1954), 295.

laurel wreath 'such are given to the brave':
Paul De Kruif,
Microbe Hunters
(1939), 130.

'What was theory':
Charles Chapin, 'The Present State of the Germ Theory of Disease,' Fists Fund Prize Essay (1885), unpaginated, Chapin papers, Rhode Island Historical Society.

'powerless to create an epidemic':
Michael Osborne, 'French Military Epidemiology and the Limits of the Laboratory: The Case of Louis-Felix-Achille Kelsch,' in Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams, eds.,
The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine
(1992), 203.

'however bright the prospect':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
see 128/32.

'not be so cheaply earned':
Welch to stepmother, April 3, 1884, WP.

'in no way discuss with him':
Ibid.

'on a high plane of loneliness':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
136, see also 153.

'deliberately break off relationships':
According to Dr. Allen Freeman, quoted in ibid., 170.

'already has a German reputation':
Welch to father, Jan. 25, 1885, WP.

the greatest name in science:
Florence Sabin,
Franklin Paine Mall: The Story of a Mind
(1934), 70.

'a small chemical lab':
Sabin,
Franklin Paine Mall,
24.

'What we shall consider success':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
225.

'which will cost $200,000':
Sabin,
Franklin Paine Mall,
112.

'You make the opportunities':
Ibid.

'the real pioneer of modern':
Martha Sternberg,
George Sternberg: A Biography
(1925), see 5, 68, 279, 285.

build a theory on the right ones:
An anecdote related by Dr. Steven Rosenberg, July 1991.

'keystone of the arch':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
165.

'putting an opponent down':
Ibid., 151.

'the richness of the world':
Ibid., 230.

'atmosphere of achievement':
Ibid., 165.

'never anything quite like it':
John Fulton,
Harvey Cushing
(1946), 118.

CHAPTER FOUR

'no evidence of preliminary education':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
222.

'long and painful controversy':
Ludmerer,
Learning to Heal,
53.

'The talk was of pathology':
Fulton,
Harvey Cushing,
121.

'what was true of Harvard':
Shryock,
Unique Influence of Johns Hopkins,
8.

'and want no others':
Quoted in Ludmerer,
Learning to Heal,
75.

'to one man (Franklin P. Mall':
Shryock,
Unique Influence,
20.

'whether they were saved':
Michael Bliss,
William Osler: A Life in Medicine
(1999), 216.

fifty-three became professors:
Bonner,
American Doctors and German Universities,
99.

'the whole still concert':
William G. MacCallum,
William Stewart Halsted
(1930), 212.

'violate all the best precedents':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
263.

'flick of a wrist':
Ludmerer,
Learning to Heal,
128.

endowments totaled $500,000:
Shryock,
Unique Influence,
37.

marvelous curative agent:
Victor A. Vaughan,
A Doctor's Memories
(1926), 153.

'an epoch in the history of medicine':
Flexner and Flexner,
William Henry Welch,
207.

'a body of research':
Wade Oliver,
The Man Who Lived for Tomorrow: A Biography of William Hallock Park, M.D.
(1941), 238.

'little less than lunatic':
Frederick T. Gates to Starr Murphy, Dec. 31, 1915, WP.

'to become a pioneer':
Ibid.

accepting the Jew:
James Thomas Flexner,
American Saga,
241/42.

'every letter handwritten':
Ibid., 278.

'not have anything to do with':
Benison and Nevins, 'Oral History, Abraham Flexner,' Columbia University Oral History Research Office; Flexner,
American Saga,
see 30/40.

'never heard a heart or lung':
James Thomas Flexner,
American Saga,
133.

'great gaps':
Ibid., 421.

'He read' as he ate':
Benison and Nevins, 'Oral History, Abraham Flexner.'

'days of acute fear':
James Thomas Flexner,
American Saga,
239.

'a museum in print':
Peyton Rous comments, Simon Flexner Memorial Pamphlet, Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research, 1946.

'His mind was like a searchlight':
Corner,
History of the Rockefeller Institute,
155.

'final as a knife':
Ibid.

'or they can be bled further':
Flexner to Cole, Jan. 21, 1919, Flexner papers, APS.

'Individuals were as nothing':
Peyton Rous comments, Simon Flexner Memorial Pamphlet.

mortality rate fell to 31.4 percent:
Simon Flexner, 'The Present Status of the Serum Therapy of Epidemic Cerebro-spinal Meningitis,'
JAMA
(1909), 1443; see also Abstract of Discussion, 1445.

'Remarkable results were obtained':
Ibid.

a shouting match ensued:
Wade Oliver,
Man Who Lived for Tomorrow,
300.

'mortality rate of 25 percent':
M. L. Durand et al., 'Acute Bacterial Meningitis in Adults (A Review of 493 Episodes,'
New England Journal of Medicine
(Jan. 1993), 21/28.

'I advise the publication':
Flexner to Wollstein, March 26, 1921, Flexner papers.

'Before night your discovery':
Corner,
History of the Rockefeller Institute,
159.