ABSTRACT
An outbreak of an infectious disease such as the flu pandemic is not just a biomedical phenomenon, it is also a social one. The propagation and transmission of the disease are channelled by human activities and interactions, our social structures and behaviours. There are social aspects to the spread of the disease, the responses to it and its impacts. A disease that claims so many millions of lives has an impact that extends beyond the simple and terrible roll calls of the dead. Some of those impacts can resonate over centuries, such as the plague song that is the nursery rhyme Ring-a-ring O’ Roses. This chapter examines some of the social and cultural dimensions of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, including naming of disease, diseases and metaphors, and representations and recollections of the pandemic.
