Who is Paul Lewis from the nonfiction book, The Great Influenza?

Paul Lewis was a first-generation medical scientist brought into the Navy as a lieutenant commander to help diagnose a mysterious sickness spreading among the soldiers. Barry bookends his story with information about Lewis, describing first his enlistment into the military for the purpose of finding a cure or vaccine for the flu. Barry also ends his book with his belief that Lewis was the last victim of the 1918 pandemic even though Lewis died in 1929 from Yellow Fever. Barry suggests that Lewis' death was connected to his unhappiness because he was not able to make any kind of breakthrough concerning the flu pandemic.

Barry indicates that even though Lewis was willing to work tirelessly toward his goals, and was willing to lose his family to pursue knowledge, his fault was “that he too willingly accepted guidance from those he respected” (322). Lewis had considered at one point in his research that perhaps the flu was a virus, not a bacterium. Because he respected Pfeiffer and his findings, however, Lewis chose not to test his theory.