Almost, but not quite, as appropriate as V.I. Lenin's "Peace. Bread. Land."

A good book (and espresso here and there) helps to pass the time during a long flying day …

The first chapters of John Barry’s book, “The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History,” are given over to the author’s recounting of the history and development of medical science.

In essence, Barry writes, medicine changed little for 2,000 years owing to a reluctance to apply scientific methods to the theory and practice of it. Medicine remained an obstinate realm of quackery, of humors, miasmas, and the interference of theology with science.

Eventually technology provided instruments such as the microscope, and daring pioneers proposed to link biology and chemistry to a potential doctor’s educational qualifications, but for the most part these innovations were ignored and the bleeding and mustard plasters continued with the full approval of society’s movers and shakers.

In fact, 19th-century American medical schools were an unvarnished joke, accepting anyone able to afford tuition irrespective of educational background. Poorly educated and barely trained doctors became increasingly discredited in America, while in Europe, researchers like Pasteur and Koch raced ahead with crucial scientific discoveries with vast implications for the future.

The balance only began to shift when a small and determined group of visionaries took advantage of a huge bequest and founded Johns Hopkins as the first research university in the United States, patterning it on European lines.

Author Barry points out that the visionary founders of Johns Hopkins proceeded with their organizational work as though in a vacuum, because American medicine’s degradation at the time was so complete that they could draw on no foundation or local experience for such an endeavor. Instead, they modeled Johns Hopkins on Europe’s research universities … and succeeded in the end.

By persevering, Barry notes, these visionaries created “a revolution from nothing.”

A revolution from nothing. Nice phrase, that.

Have a pleasant New Albanian weekend.