Dr. Wise on Influenza

In the bleak winter of 1918, as the Great Influenza ravaged the United Kingdom, the Local Government Board—precursor to the Ministry of Health—commissioned a stark, dramatized public‑information piece starring the austere Dr. Wise. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes: a bustling railway station teeming with weary travelers, a cramped tenement where a mother tends a fever‑stricken child, and a bustling municipal office where officials debate complacency. Dr. Wise, rendered in crisp black‑and‑white, steps into each tableau, his voice a measured blend of clinical authority and moral urgency. He delineates the virus’s insidious transmission—coughs, sneezes, shared linens—while admonishing citizens to adopt simple, yet lifesaving measures: regular hand‑washing, ventilation of rooms, and the avoidance of crowded gatherings. The narrative crescendos as the epidemic’s toll becomes palpable; funeral processions snake through fog‑laden streets, and the once‑indifferent public finally confronts mortality. Dr. Wise’s final admonition, delivered against a backdrop of a soot‑blackened cityscape, implores viewers to reject complacency, lest the invisible foe claim further lives. The film concludes with a stark, handwritten plea urging immediate action, encapsulating the era’s desperate bid to harness media as a tool of public health intervention.