Killer Viruses and One Man's Mission to Stop Them

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

Museum, Air And Space, Society & Culture, National Museum, Tony Cohn, Sidedoor, Natural History, African American History And Culture, Postal Museum, History, American History, History Of The World, Exhibits, Art19, Pop Culture, Smithsonian, The Smithsonian, Science, Washington, National Zoo, Zoo, Dc, Exhibit

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2018

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1918, a flu pandemic killed more than 50 million people worldwide. Forty years later, it nearly happened again. This week on Sidedoor, we go back to a time when the viruses were winning, and we remember one man, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, whose vaccine virtuosity helped turn the tide in the war against infectious diseases.

Special thanks to our sponsor, Empty Frames. Search and subscribe to Empty Frames today on Apple Podcasts or your favorite listening destination.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Tony Cohn.
0:15.0	I always remember a quote which was the bodies piled up something fierce.
0:23.4	In 1918, a super deadly virus spread across the world.
0:27.8	Alexandra Lord, the chair and a curator of medicine and science at the Smithsonian's
0:32.2	National Museum of American History
0:34.7	has spent years studying what made 1918 so deadly.
0:38.5	When we think about bodies accumulating and a city not able to keep up with bearing the dead, we think that's something that happened in the middle ages.
0:45.6	No, it happened in the 20th century and an industrialized nation, our nation, but also nations across the world.
0:53.0	In October, just October, the disease killed 196,000 people in the U.S. alone.
1:00.0	A year later, 675,000 people were dead.
1:04.8	And again, that was just in the United States.
1:07.2	Worldwide, the body count was as high as 100 million.
1:10.9	It was one of the most intense pandemics that we've ever seen.
1:15.0	So what cause of a 1918 pandemic?
1:18.0	Bubonic plague?
1:19.0	Scarlet fever?
1:21.0	Nope.
1:22.0	It was influenza. just the common flu.
1:25.3	The thing that you try not to get every year, and especially this year,
1:29.0	in 2018, when the flu's been particularly aggressive.
1:32.8	But fortunately, we're better off today
1:34.8	than we were in 1918, thanks to,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Smithsonian Institution, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Smithsonian Institution and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.