In late January 1918, Dr. Loren Miner, a country physician in rural Kansas, saw the first cases of an influenza of a violent nature. With a warning to the U.S. Public Health Service, his was the lone voice of alarm about the potential spread of this virulent new strain of a particularly deadly disease. With hundreds of thousands of American servicemen crisscrossing the nation through military training camps and then to Europe to fight in World War I, an influenza pandemic wasn't just a possibility, but a certainty. It swept through congested cities and rural communities alike, killing its...