“The Explosion” John Barry
John Barry in “Explosion” shows us how influenza started in Philadelphia. It was the
location of shipbuilding and a lot of workers came there to live and earn money. All the cities in
Philadelphia were crowded with people. The houses were packed with a great number of
families, who had to share small apartments. The crowds were the reason for Philadelphia to be a
fertile ground for epidemic disease, because the disease spread very fast in the mass of people.
The disease started to penetrate into Philadelphia after the sailors arrived from Boston and
a few of them reported ill. There was a need in quarantine because it was a danger of epidemics.
But the authorities in the face of Dr. Wilmer Krusen, Director of the Philadelphia Department of
Public Health and Charities, publicly denied that influenza was a threat to the city. He didn’t
want to take any actions to avoid panic among people, that’s why he continued to assure the
population that the influenza was no danger. Due to the fact that he shut his eyes on the problem,
thinking that it will resolve itself, it led to the contribution of the spread of epidemics among
civil people.
When influenza started to appear in military camp Grand it didn’t have severe cases in the
beginning. One of the main scientists Welch came to that camp to check on the precautions they
took to avoid epidemics and he offered to use gauze masks for everybody, to hang sheets
between beds to stave off epidemics. These actions helped as the soldiers had some personal
