The ‘Spanish’ influenza of 1918 was the deadliest pandemic in history, killing as many as 50 million people worldwide. Canadian federal public health officials tried to prevent the disease from entering the country by implementing a maritime quarantine, as had been their standard practice since the cholera epidemics of 1832. But the 1918 flu was a different type of disease. In spite of the best efforts of both federal and local officials, up to fifty thousand Canadians died.

In The Last Plague, Mark Osborne Humphries examines how federal epidemic disease management strategies developed before the First World War, arguing that the deadliest epidemic in Canadian history ultimately challenged traditional ideas about disease and public health governance. Using federal, provincial, and municipal archival sources, newspapers, and newly discovered military records – as well as original epidemiological studies – Humphries' sweeping national study situates the flu within a larger social, political, and military context for the first time. His provocative conclusion is that the 1918 flu crisis had important long-term consequences at the national level, ushering in the ‘modern’ era of public health in Canada.

Mark Humphries is an assistant professor of history at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he teaches war and society and military history. His books include The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health (forthcoming) and The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie (2008). His article “War’s Long Shadow: Masculinity, Medicine, and the Gendered Politics of Trauma, 1914–1939” won the 2010 Canadian Historical Review Prize.

John Maker received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Ottawa in 2010. He currently teaches for the Royal Military College and is a professional researcher in Ottawa, Ontario.

Wilhelm J. Kiesselbach (translator) was born in Hamburg, Germany, where he completed a B.A. in English and journalism. After emigrating to the United States he was immediately drafted into the U.S. Army and spent seven years with Seventh Army Headquarters in Germany as translator and interpreter. For his service in Vietnam, he was decorated with the Army Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star.

Mark Osborne Humphries' profile page

‘A superbly written work that demonstrates the possibilities of both quantitative and qualitative research, this engaging book deserves a wide readership among those with interest in the history of the pandemic, the First World War, and the social and political history of medicine and public health.’

Social History of Medicine, August 2013

‘Well researched and argumentatively coherent, this is one of those rare books that will please readers of disparate interests.’

Labour/Le Travail, vol 73 2014

‘Humphries makes a significant contribution to scholarship of the 1918 influenza epidemic in Canada with this book, a fine example of the masterful harnessing of primary sources and statistics to debunk old narratives and present refreshing new perspectives.’

Canadian Bulletin of Medical History vol 3101:2014

‘This fine book chillingly dissects the disease as it burned through Canada as Well as the failed attempts by authorities to stop it.’

Canada's History, Aug-Sept 2013