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PETER'S NEW YORK
PETER'S
 
 NEW 
 
YORK 
 
View of New Jersey as seen from the 79th floor of the second of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Copyright 1999 by Peter Duveen.
 
News from a native New Yorker
 
Disclaimer: The views expressed here, unless otherwise stated, reflect only those of the publisher of this web site, and should not be misconstrued to be the views of any other person,corporation or business entity, organization, institution, municipality or nation-state. Email your comments to the attention of the Editor, Peter Duveen, at pduveen@yahoo.com.COMMENTS ARE WELCOME AND MAY BE POSTED.
 
http://www.petersnewyork.com/ (1 of 40)5/20/2009 12:10:25 AM
 
PETER'S NEW YORK
A bouquet of wildflowers to brighten your day!
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Also check out new postings for the Museum of Brooklyn Art and Culture:"Culinary Archeology III: The Lemon Meringue Pie of  
Yvonne
Pène
du Bois" 
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 Millions have perished in Afghanistan and Iraq and hundreds of thousands have either lost their lives, been maimed, detained,tortured and humiliated as a result of the war on terror. That war has become the biggest excuse in human history to break thelaw and carry out summary justice. It has been turned into the largest lynching party ever carried out by a posse of outlaws pretending to uphold the law.
--Osama Al Sharif 
Arctic explorer describes bout with 1918 flu in memoir
 
The evidence is in: expert says Mexican flu could have laboratory origin
News analysisBy Peter Duveen
http://www.petersnewyork.com/ (2 of 40)5/20/2009 12:10:25 AM
 
PETER'S NEW YORK
 PETER'S NEW YORK, Thursday, May 14, 2001--As health officials worldwide scramble to stem a flu pandemic, the public may be puzzled as to what allthe fuss is about. Flu is generally an illness which, for most, is not more serious than the common cold. But there is good reason for concern, if the past isany judge of what the future could be like.Because the strain of flu currently spreading around the world is said to be adescendant of the Spanish flu, deaths among those contracting the illnesscould be far in excess of those produced by other strains of the virus. The Spanish flu, also named the 1918 flu, was known for the high proportion of deaths attributed to those infected by it. It had a mortality rate of 2.5 percent or more, far greater than that of ordinary human flu.A typical experience is related by the Arctic explorer, Peter Freuchen, who came down with the illness soon after returning to Denmark from Greenlandin December of 1918. The following account is from Freuchen's 1935 memoir,
 Arctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North
:"An epidemic of the Spanish influenza swept over Europe, and I contracted it. I was walking along the streets of Copenhagen when suddenly I felt dizzy. Istaggered up to a couple of policemen and asked them to call me a taxi. Unfortunately there was a telephone strike on at the moment, and they could notcall for a cab. Also, they thought I was drunk. When I denied this it only convinced them they had been right and they bundled me off to the police stationwhere, fortunately, I was recognized and rushed to a hospital."I was kept there for four months, and for a long time was so ill that I was isolated in a ward reserved for dying patients. I remember that the room wasmeant to accommodate six beds, but the epidemic raged so furiously that on one morning eleven patients were brought in alive, and nine bodies carriedaway before evening. I was one of the lucky two who survived. the other was a champion wrestler and a devil to handle in his delirium as, they told me, Iwas. It took three porters to hold me down, and I played football with them, tossing them from one side of the bed to the other."Then Navarana (Freuchen's wife) came to visit me, and she was the only one who could keep me quiet. My mother and my sisters also visited me as wellas a number of newspapermen. Navarana sat beside me most of the day.....Freuchen later says, "I was so weak after being released from the hospital that I could not walk for a long while. My hair fell out. I was thinner than I hadever been, and tortured with sciatica."The flu had not done with him yet, however. His wife later came down with it, and unexpectedly passed away."It was apparent by now that Navarana had Spanish influenza, the same disease to which I had fallen victim the year before. I did not leave her side, andgot our good friend, Fat Sofie, to help nurse her. Navarana was thankful that I could be with her, though she was torn with anxiety for her children. Shewould have liked me to go up to Thule and see that Mequsaq (their son) was being cared for properly."The next day Navarana was worse. There was no doctor in Upernivik (Greenland) at the time, and there was nothing more we could do for her. In theevening she asked me what I though was the matter. Her head was buzzing with thoughts which came unsummoned, she said. It was ghastly to sit helplessand watch her fade away. I told her to try to sleep, but she could not...."Then she took my hand in hers and told me how happy she had been in having a husband who would talk with her as an equal. And finally she said thatshe was very sleepy. I went into the kitchen to brew tea for her. As I sat and watched the water it came over me how much I loved her, and how much shehad developed since our marriage....Navarana was so quiet that I tiptoed in to look at her. As I watched, her lip just quivered. Then she was dead."I would not believe it. I had somehow never thought of the illness as much more than a bad cold, but I called the young assistant, and he could onlyconcur in what I saw before me."
http://www.petersnewyork.com/ (3 of 40)5/20/2009 12:10:25 AM
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