Past pandemics and their outcome / Jeffrey R. Ryan -- The Spanish flu of 1918 / Linda M. Olson -- Natural history of the influenza virus / Jeffrey R. Ryan -- Clinical aspects of influenza / Allen W. Kirchner -- Avian influenza / James C. Wright, Kenneth E. Nusbaum, and James G.W. Wenzel -- Federal and international programs and assets / Jane Thomas Cash and Martha Griffith Lavender -- Defining the response at the local level / Jeffrey R. Ryan and Jan F. Glarum.