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 FEMINIST
SCIENCE FICTION
AND FEMINIST
EPISTEMOLOGY
Four Modes

RITCH CALVIN
Studies in Global Science Fiction

Series Editors

Anindita Banerjee
Comparative Literature
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York, USA

Rachel Haywood Ferreira

World Languages and Cultures
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa, USA

Mark Bould
Film and Literature
University of the West of England
Bristol, United Kingdom
Aims of the Series
Studies in Global Science Fiction (edited by Anindita Banerjee, Rachel
Haywood Ferreira, and Mark Bould) is a brand-new and first-of-its-kind
series that opens up a space for Science Fiction scholars across the globe,
inviting fresh and cutting-edge studies of both non-Anglo-American and
Anglo-American SF literature. Books in this series will put SF in conversa-
tion with postcolonial studies, critical race studies, comparative literature,
transnational literary and cultural studies, among others, contributing to
ongoing debates about the expanding global compass of the genre and
the emergence of a more diverse, multinational, and multi-ethnic sense
of SF’s past, present, and future. Topics may include comparative stud-
ies of selected (trans)national traditions, SF of the African or Hispanic
Diasporas, Indigenous SF, issues of translation and distribution of non-
Anglophone SF, SF of the global south, SF and geographic/cultural bor-
derlands, and how neglected traditions have developed in dialogue and
disputation with the traditional SF canon.

Editors: Anindita Banerjee, Cornell University; Rachel Haywood Ferreira,

Iowa State University; Mark Bould, University of the West of England

Advisory Board Members: Aimee Bahng, Dartmouth College; Ian

Campbell, Georgia State University; Grace Dillon (Anishinaabe), Portland
State University; Rob Latham, Independent Scholar; Andrew Milner,
Monash University; Pablo Mukherjee, University of Warwick; Stephen
Hong Sohn, University of California, Riverside; Mingwei Song, Wellesley
College.

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/15335
 Ritch Calvin

Feminist Science
Fiction and Feminist
Epistemology
Four Modes
Ritch Calvin
SUNY, Stony Brook
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Stony Brook, NY, USA

Studies in Global Science Fiction

ISBN 978-3-319-32469-2 ISBN 978-3-319-32470-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948753

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration © sonofsteppe / Getty Images

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
To Claudia, for everything
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing a book is a solitary act. Writing a book is no solitary act. As this

book argues, we each emerge as knowers from a vast discourse of ideas
and influences. The number of people who have influenced my ideas is
unimaginably large.
A number of my readings of particular novels have been presented at
conferences over the past few years. I would like to thank all the contribu-
tors and respondents who attended those sessions and who responded to
those papers with insightful and informative comments.
I would like to thank the anonymous respondents to the first two drafts
of this book. The comments and criticisms demonstrated a great deal of
time, effort, and care, and this book is better for it. Both rounds of reviews
and comments have been extraordinarily productive. All shortcomings
remain my own.
I would like to thank SUNY Stony Brook and the College of Arts and
Sciences for a semester-long leave in the fall of 2014, part of which was
spent writing this book.
Finally, I am honored to thank Mary Jo Bona, a steadfast colleague,
advocate, and friend. Mille grazie.

vii
 CONTENTS

Chapter Zero Ending(s) 1

Chapter One Feminist Science Fiction and Feminist

Epistemology 11
Feminist Science Fictions 11
Toward a Feminist Epistemology 22
Valuing the Abstract over the Concrete 29
Conclusion(s) 38

Chapter Two The First Mode of FESF: Epistemology

and Plot 45
Introduction(s) 45
Plot 46
Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge
of Time (1976) 51
Octavia E. Butler’s Dawn (1987) 58
L. Timmel Duchamp’s “De Secretis Mulierum”
(1995, 2008) 67
Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002) 73
Conclusion(s) 81

ix
x CONTENTS

Chapter Three The Second Mode of FESF: Epistemology

and Structural Elements 85
Introduction(s) 85
Structural Elements 85
Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975) 95
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) 105
Laura Bynum’s Veracity (2010) 112
Conclusion(s) 119

Chapter Four The Third Mode of FESF: Epistemology

and Science 127
Introduction(s) 127
Science 128
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s “Sultana’s
Dream” (1905) 138
Helen Collins’s MutaGenesis (1992) 142
Amy Thomson’s The Color of Distance (1995) 150
Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robber (2000) 160
Conclusion(s) 171

Chapter Five The Fourth Mode of FESF: Epistemology

and Language 175
Introduction(s) 175
Language 176
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand
of Darkness (1974) 184
Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue (1984) 191
Sheila Finch’s Triad (1986) 201
Ruth Nestvold’s Looking Through Lace
(2003/2011) 208
Monique Wittig’s Les Guérillères (1969) 212
Conclusion(s) 218
 CONTENTS xi

Chapter Six Beginning(s): Feminist Epistemological

Science Fiction 225
Knowledge and Identity 229
Epistemology, Feminist Science Fiction,
and the Subject 231

Works Cited 237

Index 257
 CHAPTER ZERO

Ending(s)

Many of my students wonder why I focus so much on epistemology and

the questions that it raises. And, thanks to word of mouth and various
online resources, they seem to know beforehand that that will be the case.
No matter whether the class is an introduction to Women’s Studies or an
advanced class in Feminist Theory, we tend to turn throughout the semes-
ter to the question of knowledge production and validation. Initially,
students are skeptical of both the terminology and the concerns of epis-
temologists, but in most cases, by the end of the semester, they are con-
vinced that the question of “knowledge” matters for feminists, for society,
and for themselves. Occasionally, I have had a student return, after zhe
has gone off to graduate school or to work in the “real” world, and tell
me that zhe now understands why epistemology is so important.1 In one
particular case, another student, now married and the mother of a young
child, sent me a Christmas card with the greeting “Merry Christmas”
crossed out and the words “Merry Epistemology” inscribed in their place.
A small vindication.
Far less often, students wonder why I focus on science fiction. Even as
little as a decade ago, I had a hard time filling a class on science fiction. And
among the students who did enroll, very few read or watched science fic-
tion. They took the class because it fit into their schedule and/or because it
fulfilled a general education requirement. Fair enough; that happens to the
best of us. In 2015, however, a class on science fiction, and even a class on
feminist science fiction, tends to fill up. Furthermore, most of the students in

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

R. Calvin, Feminist Science Fiction and Feminist Epistemology,
Studies in Global Science Fiction, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8_1
2 R. CALVIN

the class are familiar with—and frequently identify as fans of—science fiction.
They may not know the entire history of the field; they may not have a very
wide exposure to the field; they may not read or watch it particularly criti-
cally (though they may well). In a recent semester, I had a student who was
an avid reader of “Young Adult science fiction”. I had another student who
regularly engaged with slash fiction online. In this particular class, over half of
the students opted to write fiction for their final assignment.
But why is it so important? Why do I believe that epistemology is the
foundation of, and central to, the question of feminist analysis? And why
do I believe that it is connected to, or important to, feminist science fic-
tion? Epistemology, generally speaking, is the branch of philosophy that
interrogates the nature of knowledge (epistêmê). Epistemological inqui-
ries tend to ask questions such as “is knowledge possible?”; “what consti-
tutes knowledge?”; “what differentiates knowledge from belief?”; “what
methodologies or practices produce knowledge?”; “what validates a truth
claim?”; and “who is capable (or incapable) of knowledge production?”
These questions have had profound consequences for Western thought,
the development of rational thought, the emergence of science and the
scientific method, and—more negatively—for groups and individuals who
have been marginalized and excluded from knowledge production and
validation processes. Historically, among those groups and individuals
who have been excluded have been the slave classes, the working classes,
the uneducated (or uncredentialed), and women.
Questions of what constitutes knowledge, of what grounds a truth
claim, and of who can and cannot know things have long permeated philo-
sophical, political, and cultural debates. These fundamental questions have
been at the center of Western thought and in the midst of many historical
debates, from Plato’s Republic (380 BCE) to the querelle des femmes, that
took place in Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries,
to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s claims in Émile (1777) that “[i]nvestigation
into abstract and speculative truths, into principles and scientific axioms”
are outside the abilities of women (232), to early debates in the USA
on whether or not women could and should attend college, to Harvard
President Lawrence Summers’s 2005 suggestion that innate, biological dif-
ference may account for the gender disparities in science and engineering.
Although each of these instances is quite different from one another, and
although in each case the basis or justification is quite different, each one,
in the end, questions both the foundations of knowledge production and
the (in)validity of certain members of society to participate in the current,
 ENDING(S) 3

socially defined practices of knowledge production. In all of the above

cases, the arguments have been made that women do not have the capac-
ity for thought or for knowledge (as it is defined by the men in question)
and that that lack renders women unsuited for many of the social, political,
and cultural practices of society. Furthermore, those individuals and their
theory of knowledge discount and discredit what half the species can con-
tribute to the human endeavor.
Although Plato almost certainly was not the first human being to ask
such questions, philosophical inquiries into the nature and function of
knowledge can be traced as far back as him. Gail Fine (1990) argues that
in the Republic (~380 BCE) Plato attempts a systematic differentiation
between knowledge and belief (87).2 Zhe argues that knowledge of Forms
constitutes true knowledge and “knowledge” from the senses constitutes
belief (94–5). One of the consequences of such an understanding is that,
for anyone who derives knowledge from the senses, then that knowl-
edge can only ever be mere belief since the thing upon which the belief
is based—the world and not the absolute Form—is always in flux (Gulley
78). Since Plato confines “knowledge” to the lofty realm of the absolute
Form and “belief” to the pedestrian realm of the senses, zher formula-
tion is quite different from a contemporary definition of knowledge. For
example, in zher essay, “What Is Knowledge?” (1999), Linda Zagzebski
(1999) defines “knowledge” as “cognitive contact with reality arising out
of acts of intellectual virtue” (109). In this case, Zagzebski’s definition
seems much more firmly grounded in the “real,” concrete world than in
some abstract absolute Form.
Although ancient philosophers were obviously concerned with ques-
tions of knowledge and truth claims, the birth of modern epistemology
is frequently dated to René Descartes’s (1596–1650) Meditations on First
Philosophy (1641). According to Laurence BonJour (2002), the issues
raised by Descartes within zher Meditations firmly establish the “focus of
epistemological debates” from the seventeenth century until the twenty-
first century (11). Descartes believed that many of the received traditions
and ideas concerning knowledge were false; therefore, zhe wished to wipe
the tablet clean, as it were, and to reject everything that zhe could not
verify as true through zher “method of doubt,” which was a radical depar-
ture for philosophical inquiries into the nature of knowledge (Pritchard
39–41). For Descartes, however, everything zhe knows and everything zhe
experiences could, in fact, be a deception. Zhe does believe, however, that
when zhe thinks, zhe exists; zhe must therefore exist—the now-famous
4 R. CALVIN

formulation cogito, ergo sum. Nevertheless, zhe cannot, via the cogito verify
zher own physical existence; rather, zhe can only verify that “he exists as ‘a
thinking thing; that is, a mind, or intellect, or understanding, or reason’”
(BonJour 14).
Descartes’s cogito has had a number of consequences. For one, it has
led some thinkers toward a skepticism that provides no pathway outside
of or beyond the confines of the mind. If every perception and thought is
potentially the result of the deception of an “evil genius,”3 then no idea
and no sensory perception is to be trusted. Consequently, we as knowers
are completely cut off from the outside world (Pritchard 138–40), and
lines of inquiry such as the scientific method are incomprehensible and
pointless. Another consequence, and a significant one at that, is the sepa-
ration of mind and body. As we shall see, this mind/body split has had
profound implications for women, and, consequently, figures prominently
in feminist re-evaluations of Cartesian epistemology. To be sure, dualism
does not originate with Descartes. For example, Plato discusses a mind/
body split in zher Phaedo and is evident in zher Theaetetus.
As I noted earlier, one effect of modern epistemology has been the
emergence of empiricism and the development of the scientific method.
British philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) is strongly associated with
empiricism. In zher An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690),
zhe begins by stating, much like Descartes, that zhe seeks “to inquire into
the origin, certainty, and extent of human knowledge, together with the
grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent” (26). Zhe, too, seeks
to differentiate and distinguish between “opinion and knowledge” (27).
Locke argues that the capacity of “understanding” sets human beings apart
from other animals and gives them dominion over them, and, furthermore,
that the materials of reason and knowledge are all derived from experience
(122). Here, Locke defines the two constitutive elements of experience as
“Sensation” (that which the five physical senses convey to the mind) and
“Reflection” (mental operations such as “perception, thinking, doubting,
believing, reasoning, knowing, willing”) (123). “These two, I say, viz.
External material things, as the objects of SENSATION, and the operations
of our own mind within, as the objects of REFLECTION, are to me the only
originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings” (Locke 124).
Significantly, Locke (as we will see with feminist epistemology), unlike
Plato and Descartes, grounds knowledge in the body. However, the body
in and of itself is insufficient for knowledge. Like Plato and Descartes,
knowledge depends upon the mind, upon reason. The concrete experience
 ENDING(S) 5

of the body and of the senses is a component of knowledge, but, in the

end, the body and the mind remain separate, and the senses remain sec-
ondary to the mind.
While any number of foundational narratives might be offered here,
I have limited myself to Plato, Descartes, and Locke because of their rel-
evance to my larger project. Plato represents an example from the Greeks
of a systematic theory of knowledge, one that has had repercussions on
subsequent epistemologists, and one that has had clear gendered con-
sequences. As feminist epistemologists have argued, both zher premises
and conclusions were rooted in a gendered set of values. Descartes rep-
resents the beginnings of a modern epistemology, and zher philosophi-
cal and epistemological skepticism has also had gendered consequences.
Zher separation of mind and body, though not a new argument, solidifies
for many the exclusion of the physical, long associated with the female
body and the feminine, and the valorization of the intellectual or mental,
long associated with the male body and the masculine. Finally, in this very
brief introductory narrative, Locke represents the beginnings of modern
empiricism, the foundations of science (as opposed to “natural philoso-
phy”) and the modern scientific method. As we will see in Chapter One,
feminist epistemologists and feminist scientists have been critical of both
the theory and the practice of the scientific method. For the purposes of
my analysis of feminist SF, rather than the more analytical approach to
epistemology that focuses on the conditions of possibility for knowledge,
I employ a more naturalized approach to epistemology that assumes that
knowledge is possible, but incorporates the fact that feminists have chal-
lenged the grounds, practices, and interpretation of this knowledge.
Feminists, then, have developed a number of strategies, which include
either demonstrating that women are, indeed, capable of producing and
validating knowledge, or redefining the terms of knowledge itself. If
women qua women are making a claim for themselves for the full partici-
pation in social, political, economic, religious, and cultural life, then they
must demonstrate that they, as women, have whatever is deemed necessary
for participation in that life, namely, rationality, reason, and knowledge.
Arguably, this step is a necessary first step toward any kind of identity poli-
tics, that is, a “politics that grew out of … objective material experiences”
(Harris 300).
In Chapter One, I offer some working—albeit contingent—definitions
of “feminist science fiction” and “feminist epistemology.” I argue that science
fiction and feminist science fiction (even granting that it is a too-complex term)
6 R. CALVIN

both consist of a set of writing and reading practices that code and decode
social practices and norms, and that feminist science fiction, in particular,
focuses on the social practices and norms regarding sex, gender, sexuality,
race, and class. These fictions offer a fictive or diegetic world that differs
in some ways from our everyday lived reality, and in this gap, the narrative
encourages readers to reflect and re-examine zher own assumptions and
practices. These fictions operate as both reflections of and cultural engage-
ments with contemporary social, cultural, and political concerns. As Brian
Attebery (2002) and Justine Larbalestier (2002) argue, feminist science
fiction operates as one cultural location in which we can decode the cul-
tural constructions of sex, gender, and sexuality. Further, as Jenny Wolmark
(1994) argues, feminist science fiction always has a political aim (1, 24).
In the second half of Chapter One, I turn to the other key term of
analysis: feminist epistemology. Although women have engaged with epis-
temologies for millennia—consider Christine de Pizan’s The Books of the
City of the Ladies (1405) and Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the
Rights of Woman (1792) as early examples of (proto)feminist incursions
into epistemology—the contemporary feminist engagement with gen-
der and epistemology begins with Lorraine Code’s 1981 essay that asks
if gender is an epistemically significant factor. Since that time, feminist
philosophers and scientists have challenged the grounds of knowledge,
the criteria of knowledge, and the interpretations of data. I have identi-
fied six specific ways in which feminist epistemologists have challenged
traditional, masculinist epistemology, including the sex of the knower,
the valuation of the abstract over the concrete, the dismissal of the physi-
cal, the focus on rationality and reason, the devaluation of embodied
knowledge, and the containment of (some) bodies. I will then argue in
Chapters Two, Three, Four, and Five that feminist science fiction shares
or reflects some of these same concerns.
In Chapter One, I argue that while “feminist science fiction” (as an
umbrella term, as a reading and writing practice, and as a critical lens) has
become too vast and varied to be of much use, I suggest that “feminist sci-
ence fiction” exists, but that it takes a number of specific forms. I suggest
that one of these forms of feminist science fiction focuses on questions
of epistemology, which I am calling “feminist epistemological science
fiction” (FESF). Some feminist authors and feminist texts ask the same
questions that we see feminist epistemologists and scientists asking about
knowledge, and they make these questions a part of the text in a number
of ways. Although an author might raise epistemological questions in any
 ENDING(S) 7

number of ways, over the next four chapters I will focus on four modes
that I think are both common and effective. I argue that FESF narratives
foreground epistemological concerns by way of the plot (i.e., the recon-
structed series of events that occur in a narrative) and by way of structural
elements of the narrative (including—but not limited to—the narrator,
the temporal structure, and the perspective). These two modes are aspects
of the form of the narrative. The remaining two modes are aspects of the
content of the narrative, and include an attitude or approach to science
(sometimes a feminist corrective to scientific practices and sometimes a
rejection of Western science) and an attitude or approach toward language
(sometimes an argument that language must be reformed and sometimes
an argument that it must be destroyed and recreated). Chapters Two,
Three, Four, and Five will examine each of the four modes of FESF in
more detail and illustrate them at work in specific texts.
Chapter Two turns to the first mode of FESF. In, perhaps, the most
obvious of the four modes, I turn to the question of plot, that is, the
reconstructed account of what happened in the narrative. Who did what
to whom? What happened and why? In many ways, plot summary or
plot analysis is the most common sort of criticism, from short reviews
to online discussions. Readers want to know what happened, and they
want to know what that means. What does it mean, after all is said and
done, that Hamlet lies dead on the stage? What does it mean that Atticus
Finch, an adult white male in the US South defended a black man from
rape charges? What does it mean that this man probably held some racist
views of zher own? By examining the plot of three science fiction novels
and one novella, I will show that they are feminist (i.e., they are commit-
ted to the politics of feminism) and that the plots of these narratives raise
epistemological questions. I do not mean to suggest that they raise only
epistemological concerns; on the contrary, I will point out that they all
also raise significant ontological concerns. I will argue, however, that the
central element of the plot is knowledge production and validation.
Chapter Three examines the second of the four modes of FESF, struc-
tural elements. If the events of the narrative can raise epistemological
concerns, then the way in which that story is told can also raise—and rein-
force—those concerns. For example, in a novel in which the plot focuses
on a young man who undergoes a medical procedure to increase zher
mental capacity, the elements of that novel, including the journal format,
the typography, and the orthography, reinforce the changes taking place
within the young man, Charlie Gordon. Although any narrative consists
8 R. CALVIN

of a great many elements, and any analysis could focus on some or all
of them, I have limited the analysis of this chapter to just three specific
elements because of their relationship to epistemological concerns. I will
focus on the elements of “person,” “time,” and “perspective.” On the one
hand, the “person” of the narrator affects the veracity of the tale. Does
the narrator have access to the events? Do the characters find zher reliable?
On the other hand, the person of the narrator affects whether or not the
reader accepts the claims of the narrative as valid. In many cases, that belief
will rest upon the claims of feminist epistemologists—what do we know
of the Subject? How has zhe gotten zher knowledge? Is it abstract or con-
crete? Is it rational or intuitive? In the second element, the chronology of
the narrative can also shape and reinforce the epistemological concerns of
the plot. As we will see, a number of temporal strategies place the reader
into a position of epistemological uncertainty and invite the reader along
the pathway of knowledge and understanding. Finally, the perspective of
the narrative also affects what the reader knows and whether or not it can
be believed. Is the narrator within the events of the narrative (the dieg-
esis), or outside of them? For example, what does it mean for the reader
when the story of a brave Ibo warrior is told through the perspective of a
minor European official? How does it affect what we accept and believe
about the narrative? What does it tell the reader about differing ontologies
and epistemologies?
Chapter Four turns to the third mode of FESF, science. While the first
two modes refer specifically to elements of the narrative (the plot and
the structural elements), the remaining two modes refer specifically to
content of the narratives. In the third mode, I turn to the ways in which
science, scientists, the scientific method, and technology are represented
in the narratives. We will find that that is not consistent across the four
texts under scrutiny. As many early feminists engaged with the ques-
tion of science, they tended to work within the accepted method. They
accepted the tenets of empiricism and the scientific method, but argued
that these methods were misapplied, that the scientists were blinded by
their own cultural biases. Consequently, a number of the early examples
of feminist science fiction that addresses the question of science are firmly
rooted within the rational, empirical mode. By the 1960s, however, femi-
nists, feminist scientists, and feminist epistemologists all began challeng-
ing the scientific method and its foundations. The texts included here
will challenge the objectivity of science as practiced in the West and offer
alternative views. Further, postcolonial and indigenous analyses similarly
 ENDING(S) 9

challenged the tenets of Western science, its theory, and its application.
For example, Grace L. Dillon (2012) writes of “indigenous scientific liter-
acies” that argue that indigenous bodies of knowledge and practice are not
“primitive” and that they offer sustainable alternatives to current Western
practices.
Finally, Chapter Five examines the fourth of the four modes of FESF,
language. As John Ellis (1993) argues, epistemologists tend to have a
too-naïve concept of the rôle of language in epistemology. They have a
tendency to assume that language is a transparent medium by which we
codify the world, and through which we think and speak about it. Some
epistemologists and some linguists challenge that notion. For example,
Benjamin Whorf (1956) argues that language dramatically shapes and lim-
its how and what we can think about the world. A number of feminist
linguists, particularly in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, drew upon Whorf’s
notion of linguistic determinism. In this chapter, I argue that, even though
linguists in 2016 are skeptical of Whorf’s formulation, and even though
in 2016 feminist linguists have turned to much more interactive models
of the rôle of language, the texts in this chapter draw heavily—and often
explicitly—on Whorf’s work. Whorf argues that language shapes what we
can think, and the questions we can ask about knowledge; I am suggest-
ing that this particular approach to language and determinism are a vital
component of FESF.
I understand that each of the terms “feminist,” “science fiction,” “fem-
inist science fiction,” “epistemology,” and “feminist epistemology” in the
book is too large and varied to signify any one thing. From the time it
began to be used in the USA (1911), the term “feminism” already had the
daunting, if not impossible task, of signifying a whole range of activities
and beliefs. Similarly, “science fiction” (notwithstanding the early search
for a handy term that encapsulated SF) described a wide range of styles,
topics, beliefs, practices, and attitudes. That the term has proved insuffi-
cient is evident in both the battles to rename/rebrand SF (science fiction,
speculative fiction, speculative fantasy, “space fish”)4 that took place in
the 1960s and 1970s, and in the move to add endless adjectives, prefixes,
and suffixes. Furthermore, as we will see in Chapter One, the feminist
approaches to epistemology vary greatly. I have identified six specific femi-
nist challenges to epistemology, in part because I believe that they are core
feminist concerns, and in part because I believe that they are core com-
ponents of FESF. In the end, I hope to demonstrate that, while “feminist
science fiction” is too varied to be a useful analytical term, “feminist epis-
10 R. CALVIN

temological science fiction” signifies one form of feminist science fiction

(FSF), one form that takes certain ideas as its basis, and makes particu-
lar arguments about society, culture, politics, and identity. Additionally,
I intend the name to signify both its connections and commitments to
feminism as a social, cultural, and political movement. In the end, I hope
that other scholars and critics will take up the task of identifying and defin-
ing other specific variations and modes of feminist science fiction.

NOTES
1. I have chosen to use a gender-neutral pronoun throughout this work. While
some prefer to use the singular “they,” I have elected an invented gender-
neutral, singular pronoun. While many words have been proposed, none has
really caught on, including “per” as suggested by Marge Piercy (discussed
later in this volume). Given the book’s argument regarding the relationship
between language and epistemology, I believe the choice to be both appro-
priate and necessary.
2. The account provided here of Plato, Descartes, and Locke are all overly
reductive. Obviously, entire careers have been made of explicating their epis-
temological arguments. Therefore, no satisfactory account can be offered
here. They are offered, however, as background and foundation for the
feminist theories of knowledge developed in response to them.
3. Descartes’s malin genie is most frequently translated as “evil demon” or
“evil genius.” However, the phrase could also mean “evil genie,” which, in
some respects, gets at the playful or subversive nature of Descartes’s point.
Here, I favor the “evil genius” interpretation precisely because it highlights
the intelligence of the mind behind the deception.
4. In the introduction to zher twelfth—and final—year’s best annual anthol-
ogy, Judith Merril suggests “space fish” as a possible answer to the question,
what is SF?
 CHAPTER ONE

Feminist Science Fiction and Feminist

Epistemology

FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTIONS

Arguably, any examination of “feminist science fiction” should begin with
the noun being modified (“science fiction”) and then move on to the adjec-
tive modifying it (“feminist”)—a task easier said than done. To be sure,
both of those terms have complicated histories and subtle applications. The
history of definitions of both these terms is replete with (sometimes) vehe-
ment and “rancorous” (Attebery 1) arguments. Further, any attempt at a
definition will only ever be partial and contingent, at best. While recogniz-
ing that these terms are both complicated and fluid, what I hope to provide
here is a contingent, working definition of them both. I make no categorical
claims, but, rather, offer a historically contextualized definition that I will
then use throughout the remainder of the book. Furthermore, I acknowl-
edge that my working definitions are both partial and loaded, that is, they
are constructed in such a way as to further the arguments of this book even
while striving to remain consistent with other accepted definitions.
As Brian Attebery writes in Decoding Gender (2002), one way to think
about science fiction is as a set of codes and practices for both writing and
reading texts. “Science fiction” is a set of conventions, styles, and themes
that shape the choices a writer makes in constructing the text.1 The writer
can choose to conform to traditions and conventions, or to deform those
same traditions and conventions. At the same time, the reader who reads
science fiction understands the codes of the practice of science fiction, and
will utilize the knowledge of these practices to make sense of the text.2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 11

R. Calvin, Feminist Science Fiction and Feminist Epistemology,
Studies in Global Science Fiction, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8_2
12 R. CALVIN

Similarly, Attebery takes gender as a set of codes in which the practitioner

performs and the observer reads. As such, both science fiction and gender
are culturally determined, both in constant flux and redefinition, and both
open to interpretation or “decoding.” For Attebery, then, both gender
and science fiction are “sign systems” (2). Gender assigns “social and psy-
chological meaning to sexual difference,” and science fiction is a “sys-
tem for generating and interpreting narratives that reflect insights derived
from, technological offshoots of, and attitudes toward science” (2).
One element of the set of codes and practices that define science fic-
tion is the thing that separates SF from other forms of fiction, and from
other forms of genre fiction. Darko Suvin, whose Metamorphoses of Science
Fiction (1979) served as a touchstone for a generation of science fiction
scholars, argues that it is the “cognitive estrangement” produced by the
“new” or “novel” element of the text that characterizes or distinguishes
science fiction. Indeed, Attebery agrees that science fiction’s contribution
to the code of narrative is a sense of “strangeness” (4). Suvin applies a
structuralist framework of literary analysis to science fiction,3 borrowing
from other literary critics (Shlovsky, Brecht) when zhe calls science fiction
the literature of “cognitive estrangement.”4 According to zher model, the
reader compares the fictive world of science fiction against the familiar,
“zero world” of zher own everyday lived reality, and the alienation pro-
duced in the gap between the two worlds produces a cognitive function.
Furthermore, Suvin suggests that the science-fictional world consists of
four elements or aspects, into any one of which the new element, which
zhe calls a “novum,” can be introduced: the actant(s) (which is primarily to
say, the characters), the Social Order (social, cultural, and political struc-
tures of the fictive world), the Topography (which could take the form
of setting or of technological innovations), and Natural Laws. According
to Suvin, those fictions that introduce a novum into the actant(s) tend to
raise the question of “what it means to be human”—which might well
take the form of ontological questions. Those fictions which introduce a
novum into the Social Order tend to take the form of either a utopia or
a dystopia, and they tend to emphasize an understanding of the relation-
ship between the Self and Society.5 In other words, Suvin suggests that
narratives that focus on the actant tend to raise ontological questions,
while those that focus on the Social Order tend to raise epistemological
questions. In Chapters Three, Four, Five, and Six, I will argue that (some
forms of) feminist science fiction raise epistemological concerns in both of
these types of estrangement.
 FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION AND FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY 13

While the defining characteristics of Suvin’s model focus on science fic-

tion as an object (the science-fiction-ness of it resides in the elements of
the text itself), and the defining characteristics of Attebery’s model focus
on science fiction as a process (the science-fiction-ness of it resides in the
action), I hope to tread a space in between these two approaches—even
while drawing from both of them in defining feminist science fiction.
I contend that feminist science fiction exists and that certain formal ele-
ments of the texts define it as such. However, Veronica Hollinger (1990)
notes that the category of “science fiction by women” has gotten too
large to be meaningful (“Introduction” 129). Lisa Yaszek (2008) similarly
argues that “woman’s SF—like SF as a whole—is too diverse to subsume
under a single, categorical definition” (Galactic 15). Further, Hollinger
(1990) notes that the category of “feminist science fiction” (singular) has
grown too diffuse to even constitute a “unified body or field of study”
(“Feminist” 235), and that, consequently, it is “no longer well served
by criticism that reads it as a unified undertaking” (“Feminist” 229).
Hollinger argues that “feminist science fiction” cannot be approached
critically as if its texts share “an ideological foundation” or a “coherent
[notion] of feminism” (“Feminist” 229).6 Therefore, as in other areas of
feminist criticism, one approach, then, is to speak of “feminist science
fictions” (plural), as a means to acknowledge the diversity and disparity
among ideologies and aims of these various narratives. Speaking of femi-
nist science fictions in the plural also then opens up a critical space to
examine certain subsets or variations within the larger plurality. As we will
see in this chapter, I intend to carve out a particular approach by a number
of feminist writers and the effects that these approaches have for readers.
As Attebery notes, “science fiction is a useful tool for investigating habits
of thought, including gender” (1), or as Larbalestier claims, these imagi-
native fictive worlds render some of the aspects of the social operations
of gender “visible” (8). As (one form of) feminist science fiction, then,
I contend that these narratives are part and parcel of a particular way of
understanding reading and “decoding” gender in society.
Although women have participated in science fiction from its incep-
tion, the degree to which they participated has been the subject of much
debate. They have participated as writers and artists, as readers and fans.
However, as in mainstream literature, the presence of and the contri-
butions by women have been overlooked, erased, and forgotten. One
aspect, then, of feminist science fiction criticism has been to recover this
forgotten past, and one form that this recovery took was anthologies.
14 R. CALVIN

Pamela Sargent’s Women of Wonder (1974) heralded in an era of women’s

SF. In zher “Introduction,” Sargent wonders “why a literature that prides
itself on exploring alternatives or assumptions counter to what we nor-
mally believe has not been more concerned about the rôles of women in
the future” (xv). Sargent suggests that either science fiction as a genre is
not nearly as progressive and imaginative as its practitioners and readers
would like to believe, or that social and cultural biases are very deeply
ingrained, indeed, and reflected in the fiction.7 Furthermore, Sargent
places women as the focus of the collection, and demonstrates a lineage
and history of women’s science fiction, and that a critical mass of “good
science fiction” by women exists, as well (xiii). Sargent’s “Introduction”
to the sequel, The New Women of Wonder (1978), further examines the
history of women writing science fiction.
After Sargent’s first anthology (whether causally or temporally), a veri-
table wave of others appeared, including Vonda McIntyre and Susan Janice
Anderson’s Aurora: Beyond Equality (1976), Virginia Kidd’s Millennial
Women (1978), Alice Laurance’s Cassandra Rising (1978), Jessica
Amanda Salmonson’s Amazons! (1979), the New Victoria Collective’s
Woman Space (1981), and Jen Green and Sarah LeFanu’s Despatches
from the Frontiers of the Female Mind (1981). In Despatches, Green and
LeFanu draw from the “images of women in SF” tradition, and argue that
“[c]hanges in the representation of women in science fiction have done
little more that reflect the legal and social advances made by women in
our society” (1).
Another form that feminist science fiction criticism has taken is the
question of “women in science fiction.” Much as it did when Virginia
Woolf addressed the question of “women in fiction” in A Room of One’s
Own, the response to the question of “women in science fiction” took sev-
eral forms: the question of women who work in the field of science fiction
(writers and fans), and the question of women within the works of science
fiction (characters). For example, Joanna Russ published a short essay in
the Red Clay Reader (1970) entitled “The Image of Women in Science
Fiction”; Beverly Friend, a pioneer in feminist science fiction criticism,
published “Women and Science Fiction” in Extrapolation in 1972; fan and
critic Susan Wood wrote an essay entitled “Women and Science Fiction”
in Foundation in 1978, and feminist scholar Mary Badami published
“A Feminist Critique of Science Fiction” in Extrapolation in 1978. The
journal Science Fiction Studies published special issues on “women in sci-
ence fiction” in 1980 and 1990, and Extrapolation ran similar special issues
 FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION AND FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY 15

in 1982 and 1995. In zher essay, Russ concludes that “[t]here are plenty
of images of women in science fiction. There are hardly any women”
(39), by which Russ means that the female characters in science fiction
merely conform to social and cultural stereotypes of what women should
look like. These representations do not push back against or subvert the
cultural codes of gender, even when they push against codes of science
fiction narrative. Although both Extrapolation and Science Fiction Studies
continued to offer critical essays on sex, gender, and sexuality, it was never
the primary focus of those journals. In 1997, Batya Weinbaum, along with
Robin Reid, initiated the publication of Femspec, a journal solely dedicated
to feminist analysis of science fiction (and all forms of speculative works).
Other analyses examined the numbers of women who were fans of
science fiction. How many girls and women (often secretly) read their
brother’s or father’s copy of Amazing Stories? How many of them wrote
in to the letters columns featured in pulp magazines to express their wishes
for science fiction stories? Several recent cultural histories have examined
the extent of the rôle of women in early science fiction fandom, including
Justine Larbalestier’s The Battle of the Sexes (2002) and Helen Merrick’s
The Secret Feminist Cabal (2009) (though these two books also do more
than that).
Still other analyses examined the ways and extent to which women as
writers of science fiction had to emulate the men who were writing. Could
they publish under their own names? Did they receive the same kinds of
critical and popular attention? On what grounds were their works criti-
cized and analyzed? Were they held to the masculine standard or were
the standards altered in response to their work? In what ways did science
fiction by women writers conform to or undermine the conventions of
science fiction? What themes did they commonly represent?
Regarding the science fiction written by feminist writers, critics and
fans tended to dismiss it as either derivative of the work written by men,
or else as “suburban” fantasy. Indeed, Joanna Russ (in)famously belit-
tles the work of many women science fiction writers for being too tame,
too domestic, too patriarchal (Russ, “Image” 36). However, in Galactic
Suburbia (2008), Yaszek uncovers some of the ways in which these writers
were really quite subtle in the ways in which they subverted the domestic
narrative within science fiction. For one, just as Woolf suggests in A Room
of One’s Own, they sometimes brought the narrative into the domestic set-
ting, offering a new subject matter. For example, in “Captive Audience”
(1953), Ann Warren Griffith places the setting of the story largely in the
16 R. CALVIN

kitchen and the supermarket. Innovations in marketing have infiltrated the

home since women are the primary consumers, and the story illustrates
how these innovations “erode the boundaries between public and private
lives in dangerous ways” (Yaszek 93). In other examples, the authors place
women in subversive rôles. For example, in Carolyn Ives Gilman’s story
“Okanoggan Falls” (2007), Earth (though, more precisely, Wisconsin)
has been invaded by a belligerent alien race, the Wattesoon. As the men
in the military adopt an aggressive stance, Susan takes the Wattesoon
captain into zher home and bonds with the alien captain on a personal
level, appealing to the alien’s feelings for zher wife and daughter. While
“Okanoggan Falls” is a much later example of “galactic suburbia,” it dem-
onstrates one way in which a feminist writer approaches a belligerent situa-
tion in an altogether different understanding of the world and of relations,
from intergalactic politics to interpersonal politics.
The 1960s ushered in a new era of feminist science fiction. For one,
feminism was now a part of the Zeitgeist. A number of liberal, rights-
based movements were front-and-center in the public discussions and
actions in the USA. The Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Liberation
Movement, the American Indian Movement, the Chicano Movement
(El Movimiento), and the Young Lords had all pushed individual rights
and liberties to the forefront of public consciousness. Even if it was (some-
times) being disparaged, feminism was in the news, on the television, and
on people’s minds. This public awareness of feminism and women’s issues
assisted in the emergence of a new wave of feminist science fiction.
However, this new wave of feminist science fiction did not emerge
wholly formed or ex nihilo, nor did it emerge solely as a response to larger
political movements taking place outside of publishing. In addition to the
larger social, political, and cultural movements taking shape, the genre
of science fiction itself was changing, as well. Because, as noted above,
science fiction frequently responds to either technological innovations or
social and political alterations, the narratives and themes of science fiction
(sometimes) reflect those changes. Just as, for example, science fiction
after 1945 frequently represented anxieties about global, nuclear annihila-
tion and anxieties about the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union,8 science
fiction of the 1960s began to take an inward, self-reflexive turn with the
emergence of the New Wave. As Edward James (1994) writes, “the writers
of the so-called New Wave were mostly born during or after the [Second
World War], and were not only reacting against the SF writers of the past,
but playing their part in the general youth revolution of the 1960s which
had such profound effects upon Western culture” (167).9
 FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION AND FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY 17

As Jenny Wolmark (1994) argues, SF initially emerged as a mode of

literature by examining science and technology, and was generally hopeful
about the promise of science and technology.

By the end of the 1960s, however, science fiction narratives manifest a

noticeable lack of confidence in science and scientists, and the production
of more dystopian SF leads Fred Pfeil to suggest that the “highly literary
science fiction in the 1960s was itself paradoxically the sign of a certain
exhaustion of content, of the bankruptcy of the utopian/dystopian dialectic
on which virtually all serious SF was based for the first hundred years of its
existence.” (Aliens 157)

This period of civil rights movements and the Women’s Liberation

Movement—as noted above—exacerbated the distrust in science and
technology and enabled the shift toward the social sciences and socio-
logical issues (Wolmark, Aliens 158). “The changing social, political, and
cultural agendas of the 1960s and 1970s generated a range of oppositional
stances towards the dominant discourses of power and control, and within
SF, general anxieties about corporate and political control of science and
technology coincided with the feminist critique of patriarchal structures”
(Wolmark, Aliens 158).
So, because science fiction initially emerged as a genre concerned with
science and technology and with scientists and adventurers, in part because
it developed at a moment in time characterized by patriarchal social, cul-
tural, and political structures, and in part because it reflected the codes
and traditions of a masculinist genre, it reflected a “technophilic, mascu-
linist” attitude that many saw as antithetical to feminism (Merrick, Secret
15). Some have argued (and Merrick cites Carolyn Heilbrun, Patricia
Duncker, and Anne Cranny-Francis as examples) that both the masculinist
origins of science fiction and the inherently conservative aspects of genre
fiction render it unsuitable to feminists and feminism.10 As Attebery notes,
however, the gender representations of the pre-1950s tended toward the
conventional while those of the 1950s and later really began to challenge
many of the gendered and sexual norms (6), suggesting both that the
form can accommodate subversion and that the form responds to and
reflects the changes going on outside it. As social, cultural, and political
changes shifted gender politics and practices, those changes were reflected
in fiction. As I will argue in Chapters Two, Three, Four, and Five, some
feminist science fiction pushes against the codes of narrative in particular
ways in order to illustrate or subvert the codes of gender.
Another random document with
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The other members of the family were attacked as follows: Baby, 8th;
Mrs. and boy, 12th; boy, 18th, girl, 22d; girl 25th.
“Household 10.—Master K. stayed a few days with some friends in
London. They had been ill with influenza. Returning home on
December 31st he was taken ill. Four brothers and sisters ill on the
2d January, Mr. K. on 3d, child and two servants on the 5th, Mrs. K.
on the 7th.”
Group C.—Where the source of infection could not be determined
or was local.
“Household 28.—Mrs. D. (who thinks she got it shopping) was
taken ill 2d January, her daughter on the 5th, and Mr. D. on 6th.
“Household 29.—Mrs. L. (who thinks she got it shopping), aged
80, had influenza badly in 1847; similar symptoms, but much milder,
on January 6, 1890; Miss L. was attacked on the 10th, and servant on
the 17th.
Note.—A former attack did not confer immunity after forty-three
years.
“Household 30.—Mrs. B. (who thinks she got it out at work) taken
ill 9th January, and her child on the 11th.”
In Murphy’s complete list, one of the most frequent remarks is,
Mr. Blank goes to London daily. Or, Miss Blank, absent on a visit,
was taken ill with influenza and returned home.
Again, in 1890, Dr. Bruce Low studied the development of
influenza at East Keal, a town of 300 inhabitants. We quote in part
his description:
“The following is believed to have been the commencement of the
outbreak, and for these facts I am indebted to Dr. Francis Walker,
Medical Officer of Health, Spilsby, R. S. D. Mrs. N., residing at East
Keal Hall, went to London (Forest Hill) on a visit on November 11th.
She visited Barnum’s Show on November 13th. She became ill on the
night of the 14th. Her symptoms were those of a cold, attended with
sore throat. No one else so far as she knew was ill in this way in the
house before her. She left Forest Hill on November 16th, still feeling
very unwell, and went to stay with friends at Kensington. She was too
ill to return home till November 23d, at which time she was still
feeling very weak. She heard from Forest Hill that, directly after she
left one of the inmates of the house where she had been visiting fell
ill with symptoms similar to her own. Within a few days, probably
about the 27th of November (the exact date is not fixed), of her
return home, her son, aged four, became unwell with what appeared
to be an ordinary cold, but the child had epistaxis; he soon recovered,
but during the next fortnight the four servants in the house were ill
with what were said to be ‘colds,’ one of them also had epistaxis. On
January 2d another son, aged six, was ill with ‘cold’ for a few days; he
went out and had a relapse, which compelled him to stay in the
house for another week.
“On January 3d, Mrs. N. again fell ill with ‘a bad cold,’ attended
with headache, backache and epistaxis. She was in bed two days and
felt miserable and prostrate for more than a week after. On January
5th, Mr. N., her husband, had headache, backache, and general
soreness ‘all over.’ On January 10th, the boy, aged four, who was first
attacked after his mother’s return from London, again became ill, his
symptoms being the same as before. The only other remaining
member of the family who had managed to escape an attack of ‘cold’
up to this date, was said to have felt ill the day the boy had his second
attack; but the illness of this individual was slight, and only caused
suffering for one night. Thus between the return of the mother on
November 23d and January 10th all the inmates of this house, nine
in number, had an attack of illness, evidently of the same nature. A
boy who works in Mr. N.’s yard was taken ill with influenza about the
end of November. He lives in the village. After his illness his four
brothers also were ill. Dr. Walker says that ‘about the end of
November’ cases of like illness were beginning to crop up in East
Keal. Mrs. W., the wife of the village grocer and baker, who waited on
customers in the shop and never left the shop or house, was taken ill
on the afternoon of November 30th. Next morning, December 1st,
her husband and six children were all attacked in the same way with
what is now recognized to have been marked influenza. The only
inmate of the house who escaped was a youth employed to deliver
bread and groceries in a cart in the neighboring village.”
Leichtenstern relates that a physician traveling from Berlin on the
10th of December became sick in his home town, Elgesburg, on the
8th of December, but he made several visits and a few days later
those people seen by him fell sick, while otherwise there were no
cases of influenza in the town or its neighborhood. These cases would
probably have fallen in Group C., of Murphy’s classification.
Intimacy of family contact.—We have been able to discover in a
representative number of families in which influenza has occurred,
not only what individuals slept in the various rooms of the
household, but also what individuals slept in the same bed with
influenza cases. We can, therefore, study for the 1920 epidemic three
degrees of contact; contact by sleeping with a case of influenza; by
sleeping in the same room but a different bed; and general contact by
being in the family, but sleeping in another room. For brevity we
designate these, “sleeping,” “room” and “family” contact. We have
established similar information for 1918, after eliminating families in
which deaths or births or other additions or losses had occurred
during or subsequent to the 1918 pandemic, in which there has been
a change of address, in which the cases are so widely separated that
we have designated them unrelated, and finally, those families in
which the information has been insufficient. With the remaining we
have assumed that the distribution within the household has been
the same in both epidemics. Statistics are available on 1,734
individuals who in 1918 were exposed to a prior case in the family. Of
these, 462 developed influenza and 1,272 did not. 26.6 per cent. of
exposed individuals in families contracted influenza, without respect
to the degree of exposure.
Intimacy of Number so Number Per cent.
contact. exposed. infected. infected.
“Sleeping” 360 166 45.2
“Room” 303 59 19.5
“Family” 1,064 273 22.3
45.2 per cent. of individuals sleeping with cases of influenza in
1918 contracted the disease; 19.5 per cent. of those sleeping in the
same room, but different beds did so; 22.3 per cent. of those living in
the same family, but sleeping in other rooms contracted the disease.
Sleeping contact is more productive of influenza than are the less
intimate forms.
Throughout this study the fact that there are multiple possible
sources of infection both outside and often within the family
complicates the picture.
 The results for 1920 are similar. Here, 30.0 per cent. of all
individuals sleeping with cases of influenza contracted the disease,
17.7 per cent. of room exposures contracted it, while but 11.5 per
cent. of family exposures were attacked.
Four hundred and sixty-three or 29.1 per cent. of the total of 2,193
individuals exposed in 1920 had had the disease in the 1918
pandemic. Did they show by reason of any immunity a lower attack
rate for the same degree of exposure than other individuals in 1920?
Per cent. of exposed Per cent. of those
individuals who had who had not had a
Type of exposure in had influenza in previous attack, and
1920. 1918–19 and who who on exposure
contracted it again, contracted influenza,
per cent. per cent.
“Sleeping” 27.0 31.0
“Room” 18.3 17.6
“Family” 12.0 11.2
On the whole there is no evidence of protection afforded by a
previous attack.—Individuals who had had the disease before
succumbed to a second attack in the same proportion as those who
had not previously had influenza.
Recurrent cases.—In certain families there were individuals who
had had influenza during both the 1918 and 1920 epidemics. Were
these recurrent cases the first ones to occur in the family, or did they,
as a rule, follow other cases in the same household? We have records
of 236 recurrent cases in which we know the order of occurrence of
the various cases in the family. Out of this total number 57 were the
initial cases in the household. One hundred and nineteen were the
only cases occurring in the family. Therefore 176 or 74 per cent. of
the total number of recurrent cases were either the first or the only
cases in the family. Sixteen recurrent cases followed between other
cases and 44 occurred as the last of a series of two or more in the
household.
SECTION V.
 Immunity.
Opinions of all observers who have studied in detail the question
of immunity in influenza are remarkedly in accord. The conclusions
reached by Parkes in 1876 are valid today, and form as excellent an
abstract of our present knowledge as any produced since his time.
“There is some discrepancy of evidence, but, on the whole, it seems
clear that, while persons seldom have a second attack in the same
epidemic (though even this may occur), an attack in one does not
protect against a subsequent epidemic. Indeed, it has been supposed
rather to render the body more liable.”
In 1890, Abbott wrote: “There is but little if any evidence in
support of the protective power of one attack to confer immunity
against a second; and hence adults are not exempt, as they usually
are in epidemics of scarlet fever or other exanthemata; so that the
proportion of adults to children attacked in an epidemic is
necessarily greater than that which is observed in epidemics of other
infectious diseases.”
Parsons made somewhat similar observations: “One attack of
influenza does not seem to be protective against another; the disease
in this respect resembling diphtheria, erysipelas, and cholera rather
than smallpox, measles, or whooping cough. The duration of the
epidemic in a locality is so short that it is difficult to distinguish
between second attacks properly so-called, and relapses, which are
frequent enough. A case is recorded in the ‘British Medical Journal’
of February 15, 1890, in which a patient who had suffered from
influenza in France in December, 1889, had another attack in
England in January, 1890. It was noticed in 1837 that many persons
suffered from influenza who had had the disease during the previous
epidemic in 1834. The shortness of the interval between these two
epidemics, as compared with that between 1848 and 1889, seems to
show that the periodical return of the disease in an epidemic form
does not depend upon the accumulation in the interval of susceptible
individuals unprotected against the disease by a previous attack. If
one attack afforded protection against another a large proportion of
the population in 1837 must have been protected, yet an epidemic
occurred, and on the other hand for many years before 1889 a large
majority of the population must have been unprotected by a previous
attack, yet the epidemic did not recur.
“The persons now living who passed through the disease in 1847
are of course comparatively few, but such persons have not been
exempt from the present epidemic.
“I should be inclined to attribute the short duration of the
influenza epidemic in a locality to the establishment of a tolerance
for the specific poison among the persons exposed to it, similar to the
tolerance for dust possessed by workmen in rag factories, as
mentioned, but which is soon lost on their ceasing to be exposed to
it, rather than to a true immunity being established.
“Relapses in influenza are of frequent occurrence; they occurred in
9.2 per cent. of the cases at the Morningside Asylum, Edinburgh, and
in some cases indeed a second relapse has been recorded. The time at
which the relapse occurs is usually from a week to a fortnight after
the primary attack, and it can often be distinctly traced to an
exposure to cold, or return to work before complete recovery. The
symptoms of the relapse are similar to those of the primary attack,
except that they are commonly more severe.”
In his report of 1893, Parsons goes into the subject of recurrent
attacks in individuals in greater detail. He quotes several
communications received from various physicians and health
officers. These opinions differ, some believing that the disease
predisposes to another attack; others, that there is no effect on the
incidence in recurring epidemics; and still others believing that there
is a small amount of acquired immunity. The communications are
not based upon statistical evidence. He does find, however, an
opportunity for statistical study in the industrial schools at Swinton
near Manchester: “These schools were severely affected in March,
1890, 171 out of 589 children having suffered, or 29 per cent. In the
first epidemic of 1891 they were again affected, but to a less extent,
only 35 cases occurring. At that time there were in the schools 449
children who had been there at the time of the former epidemic. Of
these 150 had had influenza in 1890 and 4 of them had it again, or
2.6 per cent.; 299 had escaped influenza in 1890 and 17 of these had
it now, or 5.7 per cent. Thus, so far as these figures go, an attack of
influenza confers a degree of protection which after the lapse of a
year diminishes by one-half the liability to contract the disease.”
Leichtenstern, like Parsons, recognizes the importance of
distinguishing between relapses and recurrent cases. Relapses in
influenza are not common. They usually occur after the patient is up,
and about when he is ready to leave the house. These are not
recurrent cases, but in the epidemics in the years following 1889
there were plenty of well substantiated cases of recurrent typical
influenza in the same individual and some times even in entire
families. During the 1889 epidemic, as during the 1918 epidemic it
has been suggested by various observers that the apparent immunity
among the very old was due to immunity developed as the result of
previous epidemics, such as that of 1837, 1847 and 1857.
Leichtenstern has collected the statistics from five different hospitals
in which 8, 32, 35, 24, and 24 per cent. of individuals attacked in
1891–92 had already had the disease in 1889.
Allbutt in 1905 remarked that whereas he had previously believed
that immunity to influenza usually persists as long as six months,
many cases had recently been brought to his notice where such an
interval seemed improbable, where the succeeding attack was
probably not a relapse but a new infection. He has seen two attacks
apparently separate occurring in the same individual within two
months. In the same year Moore wrote that influenza shows a
decided tendency to relapse, a feature to which the indirect fatality of
the disease is in great measure due. “So far from establishing
immunity, an attack of this malady seems to render an individual
more liable to contract the disease upon any future exposure to its
contagion.”
Again West, in the same year wrote, “From our present experience
we must conclude that influenza is infectious in a very high degree
indeed, and that the protection afforded by an attack is imperfect, or
of very short duration. Indeed, one attack seems actually to
predispose, after a time to another, or, to put it differently, that the
positive phase of protection is followed by a negative phase, in which
the individual seems rather more than less liable to succumb to
infection if exposed to it. It seems more likely that an individual may
never have influenza at all than that, having had it once, he should
never have it again. Some, indeed, seem to offer so little resistance
that they develop it regularly once or twice a year.”
We have previously shown that the relatively low morbidity among
the older age groups in 1918 is not satisfactorily explained by an
immunity lasting over from the epidemic of 1889–93. If such were
the case the change in mortality rate in large groups of individuals
would occur at the age of 30.
During the autumn of 1918 many observations were made,
particularly in the armies, of light incidence in those groups or
communities that had had the disease in mild form in the spring of
the same year.
Parsons quotes many similar observations for the period 1890–
1893.
V. C. Vaughan relates that at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, “there was
in April a division of troops numbering about 26,000. An epidemic
of mild influenza struck this camp in April, 1918, and within ten days
there were about 2,000 cases. This included not only those who were
sent to the hospitals, but also those who were cared for in barracks.
“This was the only division that remained in this country without
change of station from April until the fall of 1918.
“During the summer this camp received 20,000 recruits. In
October, 1918, the virulent form of influenza struck this camp. It
confined itself almost exclusively to the recruits of the summer and
scarcely touched the men who had lived through the epidemic of
April. Not only the 2,000 who had the disease in April, but the
24,000 who apparently were not affected escaped the fall epidemic.
It appears from this that the mild form of influenza of April gave a
marked degree of immunity against the virulent form in October.
There is another observation which points the same way. Looking
over the statistics of the fall epidemic in cities in the United States we
find that certain cities had a low death rate, while others had a
relatively high rate. Among those cities which had a low death rate
we will mention Atlanta, Ga.; Kansas City, Mo.; Detroit, Mich., and
Columbus, Ohio. Going to the spring records of these cities we find
that in all of them in March and April of 1918 there was an unusually
high death rate from pneumonia and undoubtedly in these cities at
that time there was a relatively mild epidemic of influenza. In this
way I am inclined to account for the relatively low death rate in these
cities in the fall of 1918. I make no claim that this and other instances
of a similar kind prove that the mild and virulent forms of influenza
are manifestations of the same disease, but I do hold that the
evidence points that way.”
Lemierre and Raymond report the following observation in favor
of the development of a certain degree of immunity in the French
troops in April, 1918. After an intervening period of quiescence there
was a manifest recrudescence at the end of August. Many military
formations were attacked during both periods. This was true
especially in three groups of an artillery regiment under their
observation. In the first of these groups there were three cases in
April, while 114 men were attacked in August. In the third group
there were 100 cases in April and only 3 in August. In the second
group there were 20 cases in April and 59 in August. Their report
does not state the total number of individuals in each of the three
groups.
Joltrain and Baufle discuss the flaring up of the epidemic in
October, and relate that a troop of soldiers from Indo-China nearly
all had the disease lightly in the spring, but when the disease
appeared again it spared this troop completely, while troops and
civilians around developed it in a severe form.
Gibbon writes: “During the last three waves of the epidemic I had
to deal with the sick of 2,000 troops, and during this time we treated
in hospital over 400 cases. No cases admitted in June, July or August
were re-admitted in October, November, or December, and no cases
admitted in either of these two periods were re-admitted in February
this year. Unfortunately I am unable to trace the cases into March as
the troops were changed.”
Dopter reports recurrent epidemics of influenza in a French Army
Division in 1918. The division, of which he was surgeon, was one of
the first to contract la grippe at the time of its first appearance in the
zone of the armies at the end of April, 1918. At this time nearly the
entire body of infantry troops was attacked. The disease was mild,
and without complications. The regiment of artillery escaped nearly
entirely. This epidemic subsided very rapidly, and by the end of May
it had entirely disappeared. Early in August a group of heavy artillery
was attached to the division, bringing influenza with it. Then a few
cases appeared in the regiment of light artillery which had hitherto
escaped. By the end of August all three groups of this regiment had
been attacked. In this second epidemic the men who had come
through the first unattacked were very severely ill in the second.
With rare exceptions those sick in the first did not contract it
again. Dopter notes that in the battery the most severely affected in
August, of which the effectives were reduced almost to none, only
those men were considered well enough for duty who had had
influenza in the first period. They escaped the second in spite of the
close contact with their comrades. The infantry regiments, which
were in close association with the artillery, remained unaffected.
Finally, toward the middle of September new troops were attached
to the division, in view of an imminent attack by the enemy. These
troops, coming from neighboring and distant formations were
suffering at the time from grip, and continued to have the disease in
the new sector. Again, those attacked in May passed without damage
through this new epidemic. Among them there were only rare
isolated mild cases. The recurrences made only 1.6 per cent. of the
total incidence.
Opie and his associates found that at Camp Funston after the first
wave of influenza in March and April, 1918, the succeeding waves
usually affected only new recruits, who had not been in camp during
previous waves.
In Calcutta influenza appeared as an epidemic in July, 1918, and in
November, 1918. During the first quarter of 1919, at Calcutta as
elsewhere, many cases were still recurring. Malone investigated the
incidence of the disease in three institutions of Calcutta: He found
that in the Gourepore Jute Mills where the population was
practically stationary, those individuals who were attacked in July,
1918, passed through two later epidemics, in December, 1918, and
February, 1919, without contracting the disease a second time, in
spite of intimate contact with infected persons. The same was true
according to Malone in the Alipore Central Jail and the Presidency
Jail in Calcutta. He believes that his evidence strongly suggests an
immunity lasting for at least nine months.
Dunlop found that Glasgow had a mild epidemic in the month of
May, 1918, in which the death rate rose from 14.1 to 20.1. There is no
record of any similar outbreak in Edinburgh. In the July epidemic
the Glasgow death rate rose from 11.7 to 15.9, while the Edinburgh
death rate went from 11.3 to 18.0, a higher increase. In the October-
November epidemic the Glasgow rate rose from 11.0 to 38.4, while
the Edinburgh rate went from 10.8 to 46.2. In the February-March
epidemic the Glasgow rate rose from 14.9 to 48.3, and the Edinburgh
rate from 18.9 to 52.1 In the July and October epidemics Edinburgh
showed a greater increase in death rate, while in February, 1919, the
increase in the two cities was the same. However, in this case
probably other factors play a part. Also, we must remember that here
we are dealing with death rates, not with incidence rates.
The Inspector General of Health, in Spain, reported in January,
1918, that those cities which had the disease in May, 1918, suffered
lightly in the autumn of that year, while others of the large cities
which had been spared in the first invasion suffered most in the
second.
Maillard and Brune report an epidemic of influenza in an epileptic
colony. There were 32 deaths among the 63 cases. None of the
inmates of the hospital who had influenza during the June epidemic
contracted it anew during the October wave.
Ovazza records that although a number of persons contracted the
influenza anew on its return in the fall after having had it in the
spring, yet the return cases were strikingly mild, and always free
from complications.
Barthélemy describes the successive waves of epidemic influenza
at Bizerte. He found that the doctors and nurses who had been
through the first epidemic did not develop influenza in the second
one a few months later, even though they came in the closest contact
with the patients.
Hamilton and Leonard have studied two successive outbreaks due
to lapses in a rigid quarantine in an institution of 180 girls between
12 and 18 years of age. The girls were distributed through six
cottages. In the first epidemic November, 1918, 76 girls contracted
the disease, at which time it was entirely limited to the occupants of
cottages 2, 3, and 4. The second outbreak occurred in January, 1919,
when 82 took ill. Only five of these were located in cottages 2 and 4,
the remainder being in 1, 5 and 6. No cases occurred in cottage 3
during the second spread. Both epidemics lasted a little under two
weeks. Those who had suffered in the first spread appeared to be
immune to the second. There were no recurrences. The second
epidemic was much milder in character. Twelve per cent. of the total
remained well throughout both epidemics.
Dr. Niven, in his study of 1,021 households previously described,
found that 105 families suffered in both the summer and autumn
1918 epidemics. “They comprised a population of 565 persons, of
whom 205 suffered in summer and 360 escaped. In the autumn
epidemic eighty-two (or 40 per cent.) of the presumably ‘protected’
persons succumbed again, whereas only 120 (or 33 per cent.) of the
‘unprotected’ suffered. Of the former, however, only one died, while
five of the latter terminated fatally. These are interesting figures. If
they are borne out by subsequent inquiry, they are somewhat
difficult of explanation. The persistent susceptibility to the primary
disease and yet comparative immunity from the fatal sequel, would
seem to suggest a dual infection, against one element of which the
body is able to produce protection, while it is unable to do so against
the other.”
Frost made a canvass of 33,776 individuals in Baltimore between
November 20th and December 11th, 1918. The same population was
again covered in January, 1919, to determine the extent of the
recrudescence reported in December. Among 32,600 people, 724
cases of influenza had occurred in the interval since the first survey.
Of this number only 26 or 3.6 per cent. were definitely cases of
second attack in the same individual. Even in these cases the
diagnosis is necessarily uncertain. Frost says that considering that 23
per cent. of the population had had influenza prior to December 11th,
the proportion of second attacks should have been much greater if no
immunity had been acquired. A second canvas in San Francisco gave
generally corresponding results.
Our own experience was quite similar. We have divided the whole
period from March, 1918 to March, 1920, into two portions separated
at August 1, 1919. In the first portion we have knowledge of but four
individuals suffering from what the records would indicate to be two
genuine attacks of influenza. Similarly, five individuals appeared to
have had two attacks within the second interval. These are to be
contrasted with a total incidence in the fall and winter of 1918–1919
of 1,971 cases, and in the winter of 1919–20, of 965 cases. Among the
total nine individuals the intervals between attacks varied from 26
days to five months. All except one had an interval of one month or
over. In two cases there was an interval of one month, in one an
interval of two months, in two an interval of three months, in one of
four months, and in one of five months. None of the four individuals
who had two attacks in the first group of months had a subsequent
attack in the second. On the contrary, two of the five suffering two
attacks in the second group of months had one previous attack in the
first. The second attack, following the first by a relatively short
interval tended to be milder than the first. In five out of the entire
nine the second attack was milder, in two it was of the same degree
of severity, and in only two was it more severe than the first. The
order of severity in the two individuals having three attacks each
was, in the first, severe, mild, severe; in the second, severe, average,
average.
Zinsser makes the following remark: “The writer himself believes
that he had three attacks during the last epidemic. The first and
second were mild ones and the third complicated and therefore
severe; and innumerable others with whom he has spoken have had
similar experiences.”
From a consideration of these reports by divers authorities it is
reasonable to conclude that for a period of a few months at least, one
attack of influenza protects against a second. As is to be expected,
this relative immunity is not of constant duration in all individuals. If
there were no lessened susceptibility following an attack we would be
faced with the phenomenon of individuals succumbing time and
again to rapidly successive attacks of the disease. Such a
circumstance is very rare.
It is difficult to determine how long even on an average this
relative protection or insusceptibility lasts. Evidence is fairly uniform
in indicating a protection of at least three months. Usually it is
longer. There seems to be some basis for the supposition that a group
of individuals exposed to an attack of influenza displays within the
succeeding three months, or slightly longer, a relative general group
immunity. If the group be considered as a whole those even who did
not develop the disease previously appear to have become less
susceptible. Whether we can ascribe this to the individual as a unit,
or whether we must explain it by some assumption with the
community as a unit, is uncertain. Is it because the exposed
individuals in the group who did not contract the disease have
individually received some of the virus into their systems and
developed a certain immunity, or is it a much more complex
phenomenon depending on greater relative dispersion of
susceptibles and other communal factors?
We may place the minimum period of “immunity” at from three to
five months, rarely less. There is additional evidence by which we
may delimit fairly closely the other extreme, that time at which
individuals considered as a group no longer manifest increased
resistance to the disease.
The author found that 19.17 per cent. of his population contracted
influenza in 1918, and 9.55 per cent. contracted the disease in 1920.
Two hundred and forty individuals, or 2.4 per cent. of the entire
population developed the disease in both epidemics. Out of 1,971
individuals having the disease in the 1918 spread, 240, or 12.1 per
cent. recurred in 1920. This is to be compared with the total 1920
incidence of 9.55 per cent. More correctly we should separate the
1920 cases into two groups, those who had and who had not had
influenza previously. The former group, 240 individuals, constitute
as just stated, 12.1 per cent. of all who had had the disease
previously. The second group, 715 individuals, constitute 8.9 per
cent. of the 8,034 who had not had the disease in 1918–19.
From these results we must conclude that a previous attack
contracted on an average of from 10 to 17 months before, conferred
no protection whatever against a second attack. On the contrary,
the attack rate was slightly higher in this group than in those who
had not previously had the disease.
Yet another evidence of the insignificant part played by any
immunity in the occurrence of influenza in individuals in 1920 is
indicated by our series of 319 infants living in 1920 but who had not
been born during the 1918 spread and who were presumably not
immune to the disease. We have not investigated whether the
mothers had had the disease in 1918. From among these 319 infants,
thirty or 10 per cent., developed the disease in 1920. This is
practically the same percentage as for the population at large.
These findings also correspond with our previously recorded
conclusion made after studying the disease incidence with three
increasing degrees of exposure, sleep, room and family (page 198).
 TABLE IX.
Comparison of the severity of the first and second attacks in
individuals contracting influenza in 1918–19 and again in 1920.
Severity. No. of No. of
Comparison.
1918–19. 1920. cases. cases.
Average Mild 43
Second attack
Severe Mild 50 132
milder
Severe Average 39
Mild Mild 30
Both of equal
Average Average 22 72
severity
Severe Severe 20
Mild Average 13
Second more
Mild Severe 5 36
severe
Average Severe 18
Altho we find no conclusive evidence of protection against
recurrent attacks, we do find (Table IX) that the second attack in the
same individual was usually milder. However, the 1920 epidemic as a
whole was milder, (Chart XVIII).
Zinsser quotes a letter from Frost in which the latter states that in
Baltimore those persons who were attacked during the 1918–19
epidemic showed no relative immunity during the epidemic of 1920.
This is not a contradiction to the earlier Baltimore studies, since in
that case the interval between the epidemic waves was not more than
about three months.
Jordan and Sharp have obtained statistics regarding
approximately 4,000 men at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station.
The men’s statement regarding previous influenza was accepted
whenever the attack was said to have occurred during the influenza
period of 1918–1919, i.e., in September, October, November,
December, January, February and March. The great majority were
reported for the period of September to December. Only a few cases
were reported as occurring in March, and perhaps these actually
occurred somewhat earlier than the men recalled. A few cases were
accepted as influenza when reported as occurring in Europe during
July and August, 1918.
They found that 28.5 per cent. of 3,905 men had had the disease in
1918, and that 22.6 per cent. were attacked in 1920. Of those who
had the disease in 1918–19, 21.2 per cent. had a repeated attack in
1920, while of those who had not had a previous attack, 23.1 per cent.
were attacked in 1920.
A similar study among 2,472 men at Camp Grant showed that 15.8
per cent. had had influenza in 1918–19, and 11.7 per cent. in 1920. Of
those with previous influenza history 15.6 per cent. had a repeated
attack, while of the remainder without previous history of influenza
10.9 per cent. were attacked in 1920. They conclude that no marked
immunity to influenza exists 12 to 15 months after a previous attack,
but that the results do not show that some degree of immunity may
not obtain at an earlier period.
It is interesting while considering the subject of immunity to pay
particular attention to those who did not develop the disease as well
as to those who did. In our series 70 per cent. of all individuals
escaped the disease in both epidemics. With some variation this
figure will hold for all communities. Or, again, among those who had
the disease in 1920, 75 per cent. had not had it in the preceding
waves.
Hall states that in Copenhagen at the Bispebjaerg Hospital, among
the 500 patients with influenza in the four weeks early in 1920, 91.8
per cent. had not had the influenza during the 1918–19 epidemic. H.
F. Vaughan found in a review of 2,500 cases occurring in Detroit in
January, 1920, that 84 per cent. had never had the influenza before.
The true significance of these figures cannot be recognized, because
we are not informed as to the per cent. of these populations attacked
in 1918–19.
We observed such a universal distribution of influenza during the
epidemic period that it is frequently assumed that all individuals are
exposed to the disease, that the virus must enter the body of all or
nearly all, and that it is due chiefly to a relative natural immunity
that some do not fall victims. Is this the actual state, or is it true that
the distribution of the virus is limited to about one-third of the
population and that practically all of those who are actually exposed
develop the disease? These are the two extremes; more probably the
actual state is somewhere between.
This question cannot be definitely answered, and yet it is one of
extreme importance, particularly with regard to prevention and
combat of the disease. How universally is the influenza virus
distributed during pandemics? What proportion of the population is
actually exposed by invasion with the virus? What proportion of
actually exposed individuals develops the disease? We will refer to
this again when comparing influenza with other infectious diseases,
but it is of particular interest now to review our individuals who were
exposed by sleeping with cases of influenza. Fifty-five per cent. of all
individuals sleeping in the same bed with cases of influenza in 1918
did not contract clinical influenza. Seventy per cent. of all individuals
sleeping with influenza cases in 1920 did not contract the disease, in
recognizable form. Sixty-nine per cent. of all individuals in 1920 who
had not had the disease previously and who slept with cases did not
develop evidences of the disease.
It is difficult to conceive of a degree of exposure much closer than
that of sleeping in the same bed with a sick individual. And yet it is
equally conceivable that many individuals sleeping in the same bed
with a patient were not penetrated by the virus of influenza. This
does not aid us in answering our question. We do not know whether
the more important factor is that of a natural immunity or that of
absence of actual invasion by the virus.
These results with sleeping contacts form an interesting link in the
chain of evidence started during 1918 by the U. S. Navy and Public
Health Service, and reported by Rosenau and by McCoy and others.
These experimenters working in Boston and in San Francisco carried
out inoculation experiments on human volunteers. The work in
Boston, as reported by Rosenau, was carried on with 100 volunteers
from the Navy between the ages of eighteen and thirty, most of them
between eighteen and twenty-five; all of them entirely well, and with
the exception of a few controls, none having experienced known
attacks of influenza previously. First, suspensions of thirteen
different strains of influenza bacilli, all from cases of influenza
during the epidemic, were sprayed into the nose, eyes and throat of
nineteen volunteers. None of them took sick. Next, secretions from
the mouth, nose and throat and bronchi of acute cases of influenza
were collected, pooled, and without filtration sprayed into each
nostril, into the throat during inspiration, and onto the conjunctiva
of each of ten volunteers. None of them took sick. Some of this same
material was filtered through a porcelain filter and administered in
the same manner, with similar results. One cubic centimeter of each
type was administered to each individual. The interval between the
time of collection and time of inoculation was then decreased to one
hour and forty minutes, the minimum time in which the material
could be transferred from hospital to experiment station. The same
results were obtained. This time six cubic centimeters were
administered to each individual. Finally, transfer was made directly
with swabs from the nose, throat and nasopharynx of one individual
to another in nineteen cases. None developed the disease.
The next series of experiments consisted in an attempt to inoculate
volunteers with influenza by injecting into them 10 cc. of citrated
blood, which was the pooled collection from five cases of acute
influenza. Ten volunteers were inoculated. None took sick. Next, the
secretions from the upper respiratory tract of acute cases were
injected subcutaneously into ten volunteers, each receiving 3.5 cc.
This material was first put through a porcelain filter. None took ill.
In an attempt to reproduce the disease in imitation of nature, ten
individuals were exposed to cases of acute influenza in hospital
wards. Each volunteer was placed very near to the patient, shook
hands with him, talked and chatted with him, for five minutes, after
which he received the patient’s breath full in his face five times while
he inhaled, and finally the patient coughed five times directly into
the subject’s face. Each volunteer did this with each of ten different
patients, all of them acutely ill, none more than three days sick. No
volunteers developed the disease. All cases of influenza used
throughout the period of these experiments were typical acute cases
selected from a distinct focus or outbreak of the disease. Sometimes,
for example, they would select four or five typical cases from an
epidemic in a school with a hundred cases.
In February, 1919, the experiments were continued at Portsmouth,
where the secretions were transferred direct from individual to
individual. In about thirty-six hours half of the number came down
with streptococcus sore throat, but not with influenza. One of the
medical officers, however, who had been very active in the
experiments, and who had come into intimate contact with the
disease since early in October, but who had not been inoculated,
developed, during this experiment, typical influenza. The
explanation for these failures is not certain. The experiments were
started rather late after the onset of the epidemic, and the volunteers
may have developed some immunity, although they had not
developed the disease. Or, they may never have been susceptible.
McCoy made a similar series of experiments in San Francisco,
using volunteers who so far as known had not even been exposed to
the outbreak, also with negative results. However, many of these
latter had been “vaccinated against influenza” with a mixed vaccine.
Wahl and his co-workers found that the nasal application of a
filtrate from the pneumonic lung of an individual dead with typical
influenza-bronchopneumonia failed to call forth any abnormal
symptoms in human subjects. The application to the mucous
membrane of the nares and nasopharynx of five healthy men, who
had been inoculated from four to six weeks previously against
influenza with a polyvalent influenza vaccine, and of one
uninoculated, of freshly prepared suspensions of four different live
strains of Bacillus influenzae, even in massive doses failed to produce
any abnormal symptoms. The implantation of living suspensions of
Bacillus influenzae produced no material alteration besides the
addition of the influenza bacillus itself. When experimentally
introduced into the nasopharynx of men the influenza bacillus exists
and multiplies for a considerable length of time, two weeks or more.
It apparently shows much resistance to the action of dichloramin T.