Modern Flu

British Medical Science and the Viralisation of Influenza, 1890—1950

Michael Bresalier

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English

Palgrave Macmillan
10 September 2023

History: earliest times to present day

Series: Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History

Ninety years after the discovery of human influenza virus, Modern Flu traces the history of this breakthrough and its implications for understanding and controlling influenza ever since. Examining how influenza came to be defined as a viral disease in the first half of the twentieth century, it argues that influenza’s viral identity did not suddenly appear with the discovery of the first human influenza virus in 1933. Instead, it was rooted in the development of medical virus research and virological ways of knowing that grew out of a half-century of changes and innovations in medical science that were shaped through two influenza pandemics, two world wars, and by state-sponsored programs to scientifically modernise British medicine. A series of transformations, in which virological ideas and practices were aligned with and incorporated into medicine and public health, underpinned the viralisation of influenza in the 1930s and 1940s. Collaboration, conflict and exchange between researchers, medical professionals and governmental bodies lay at the heart of this process. This book is a history of how virus researchers, clinicians, and epidemiologists, medical scientific and public health bodies, and institutions, and philanthropies in Britain, the USA and beyond, forged a new medical consensus on the identity and nature of influenza. Shedding new light on the modern history of influenza, this book is a timely account of how ways of knowing and controlling this intractable epidemic disease became viral.

By: Michael Bresalier
Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: 2023 ed.
Dimensions: Height: 210mm, Width: 148mm,
Weight: 760g
ISBN: 9781137339539
ISBN 10: 1137339535
Series: Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in Modern History
Pages: 458
Publication Date: 10 September 2023
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Michael Bresalier is Lecturer in the History of Medicine and co-director of the Medical Humanities Research Centre at Swansea University, in the UK.

Reviews for Modern Flu: British Medical Science and the Viralisation of Influenza, 1890—1950

“This is an impressive, well-researched study that provides an invaluable overview of the complex institutional and scientific transformations that catalyzed viral research while demonstrating, in the process, how a modern, virological way of knowing reconfigured the management of epidemics, with far-reaching consequences for research and strategies of prevention. ... Modern Flu will also appeal to readers interested in the history of medicine and scientific knowledge.” (Robert Peckham, Isis, Vol. 116 (2), June, 2025) “Modern Flu is an extremely valuable contribution to the literature on influenza and influenza pandemics. The strength of the manuscript is in detailing the formative process of research that evolved from the failure of the bacteriological model for influenza, but one that prepared the way for a virological way of knowing the flu.” (George Dehner, Social History of Medicine, April 22, 2024)