Camp Devens, 1918

In the memory chambers of my brain there hang many pictures. Some are the joy of my life, too sacred and too personal to describe to any save my most intimate friends. But there are also ghastly ones which I would tear down and destroy were I able to do so, but this is beyond my power. They are a part of my being and will perish only when I die or lose my memory. Some of these are hospital scenes. [...]

In the memory chambers of my brain there hang many pictures. Some are the joy of my life, too sacred and too personal to describe to any save my most intimate friends. But there are also ghastly ones which I would tear down and destroy were I able to do so, but this is beyond my power. They are a part of my being and will perish only when I die or lose my memory. Some of these are hospital scenes.

The fourth canvas is quite as large as the others. I see hundreds of young, stalwart men in the uniform of their country coming into the wards of the hospital in groups of ten or more. They are placed on the cots until every bed is full and yet others crowd in. The faces soon wear a bluish cast; a distressing cough brings up the blood stained sputum. In the morning the dead bodies are stacked about the morgue like cord wood. This picture was painted on my memory cells at the division hospital, Camp Devens, in 1918, when the deadly influenza demonstrated the inferiority of human inventions in the destruction of human life.

The fourth canvas is quite as large as the others. I see hundreds of young, stalwart men in the uniform of their country coming into the wards of the hospital in groups of ten or more. They are placed on the cots until every bed is full and yet others crowd in. The faces soon wear a bluish cast; a distressing cough brings up the bloodstained sputum. In the morning the dead bodies are stacked about the morgue like cordwood. This picture was painted on my memory cells at the division hospital, Camp Devens, in 1918, when the deadly influenza demonstrated the inferiority of human inventions in the destruction of human life.

Such are the grewsome pictures exhibited by the revolving memory cylinders in the brain of an old epidemiologist as he sits in front of the burning logs on the hearth of his "cottage in the woods." As he looks, he prays that his successors may be spared this infliction. I am growing sentimental and I have condemned this tendency. When I am detected I am ready to plead peccavi, but confession is not atonement.

Such are the gruesome pictures exhibited by the revolving memory cylinders1 in the brain of an old epidemiologist as he sits in front of the burning logs on the hearth of his “cottage in the woods.”2 As he looks, he prays that his successors may be spared this infliction. I am growing sentimental, and I have condemned this tendency. When I am detected I am ready to plead peccavi,3 but confession is not atonement.

1. Probably an image from the phonograph, whose turning wax cylinders played back recorded sound.
2. His summer home at Old Mission, Michigan, named earlier in the book.
3. Latin for “I have sinned,” an admission of fault.

During the World War pneumonia from the beginning to the end continued the most potent cause of death. Taking the calendar year of 1917 there were in our army 8,479 cases, with 952 deaths, a fatality of eleven and two-tenths per cent. It will be understood that mobilization of the new army did not begin until October, 1917. During the winter months of 1917-18 (September 29, 1917 to March 29, 1918) the cases numbered 13,393 with 3,110 deaths, a fatality of twenty-three and one-tenth per cent. During the summer months of 1918 (April 5 to August 30) the cases were 8,912 with 1679 deaths, a fatality of eighteen and eight-tenths per cent. During the autumn months of 1918 (the influenza period) the number of cases was 61,198 with 21,053 deaths, a fatality of thirty-four and four-tenths per cent.

During the World War pneumonia from the beginning to the end continued the most potent cause of death. Taking the calendar year of 1917, there were in our army 8,479 cases, with 952 deaths, a fatality of eleven and two-tenths percent. It will be understood that mobilization of the new army did not begin until October 1917. During the winter months of 1917–18 (September 29, 1917, to March 29, 1918) the cases numbered 13,393, with 3,110 deaths, a fatality of twenty-three and one-tenth percent. During the summer months of 1918 (April 5 to August 30) the cases were 8,912, with 1,679 deaths, a fatality of eighteen and eight-tenths percent. During the autumn months of 1918 (the influenza period) the number of cases was 61,198, with 21,053 deaths, a fatality of thirty-four and four-tenths percent.4

4. “Fatality” here means the share of cases that ended in death.

In August, 1918, Colonels F. F. Russell, William H. Welch, Rufus Cole and I made an inspection trip through the camps in the Southern States. With the memory of the visit to Asheville, North Carolina, in 1898, in mind, I proposed that we stop in that region for a few days, which we did. But there I contracted a most severe coryza. We reached Washington one Sunday morning and I went directly to the Surgeon General’s office, where General Richard was officiating, as General Gorgas was in Europe. Scarcely looking up from his papers the general said, as I entered the door: "You will proceed immediately to Devens. The Spanish influenza has struck that camp." Then, laying aside his papers and looking into my suffused eyes, he said: "No, you will go home and go to bed." I took the next train for Camp Devens and arrived early the next morning. I am not going into the history of the influenza epidemic. It encircled the world, visited the remotest corners, taking toll of the most robust, sparing neither soldier nor civilian, and flaunting its red flag in the face of science.

In August 1918, Colonels F. F. Russell, William H. Welch, Rufus Cole5 and I made an inspection trip through the camps in the Southern States. With the memory of the visit to Asheville, North Carolina, in 1898 in mind, I proposed that we stop in that region for a few days, which we did. But there I contracted a most severe coryza.6 We reached Washington one Sunday morning, and I went directly to the Surgeon General’s office, where General Richard was officiating, as General Gorgas7 was in Europe. Scarcely looking up from his papers, the general said, as I entered the door: “You will proceed immediately to Devens. The Spanish influenza has struck that camp.” Then, laying aside his papers and looking into my suffused eyes, he said: “No, you will go home and go to bed.” I took the next train for Camp Devens and arrived early the next morning. I am not going into the history of the influenza epidemic. It encircled the world, visited the remotest corners, taking toll of the most robust, sparing neither soldier nor civilian, and flaunting its red flag in the face of science.

5. Leading medical scientists then serving as army officers. William H. Welch was at Johns Hopkins; Rufus Cole headed the hospital of the Rockefeller Institute in New York.
6. A head cold.
7. William C. Gorgas, Surgeon General of the Army.

Soon the Huns were slowly but stubbornly retreating and in November the Armistice was signed, but there can be no armistice between medicine and disease. The conflict will continue as long as man walks the earth and the victory will ultimately be won by death. But as I see it, man’s mission on earth is not to seek immortality either for himself as an individual, or for his race, but to strive for wisdom. To what heights he may lift himself in this effort I can not say. I do know that if he ceases to strive for wisdom he will sink into ignorance to which there is no bottom. Man has by long effort acquired a degree of intellectuality which enables him to serve as a co-worker with his creator. The wheels of evolution are never standing still; they are constantly moving; they may go forward or backward. We are concerned with the things of this life, not with the possible or probable hereafter.

Soon the Huns8 were slowly but stubbornly retreating, and in November the Armistice was signed, but there can be no armistice between medicine and disease. The conflict will continue as long as man walks the earth, and the victory will ultimately be won by death. But as I see it, man’s mission on earth is not to seek immortality either for himself as an individual or for his race, but to strive for wisdom. To what heights he may lift himself in this effort I cannot say. I do know that if he ceases to strive for wisdom he will sink into ignorance to which there is no bottom. Man has by long effort acquired a degree of intellectuality which enables him to serve as a co-worker with his creator. The wheels of evolution are never standing still; they are constantly moving; they may go forward or backward. We are concerned with the things of this life, not with the possible or probable hereafter.

8. A wartime insult for the German forces.