This year’s flu season is well into effect though somehow I have yet to diagnose a case myself. This season is marked by an early dominance of influenza B which will be interesting to see, from a virological standpoint, remains sustained. The last time a season was dominated by influenza B was my senior year of high school (I didn’t miss any days). Markers of severity are all below epidemic thresholds.
With this year’s flu season in mind, I recently visited an exhibit that detailed a very cataclysmic event: the 1918 pandemic the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia (maintained by The College of Physicians in Philadelphia) currently has two exhibits devoted to infectious disease. One is entitled Going Viral: Infections Through the Ages. This exhibit importantly takes the viewer through the various explanatory stages for infectious diseases: from the humoral stage to miasmas to the culmination of the germ theory of disease. This progression is really crucial to understanding the history of infectious disease and how science progresses.
The other is Spit Spreads Death, a special project that details the experience of Philadelphia during the 1918 pandemic. Interactive displays demonstrating the spread of the flu, newspaper headlines, photographs , and personal anecdotes are included.
As people forget about how dangerous a virus influenza is, exhibits like these help concretize the power of this infectious disease and are well-worth visiting for both the general public and infectious disease experts alike.