Pandemics and plagues That Changed History
Artistic exprssion terror of the times |
Source: History
In the realm of infectious
diseases, a pandemic is the worst-case scenario. When an epidemic spreads
beyond a country’s borders that is when the disease officially becomes a
pandemic.
Communicable diseases
existed during humankind’s hunter-gatherer days, but the shift to
agrarian life 10,000 years ago created communities that made epidemics more
possible. Malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza,
smallpox and others first appeared
during this period.
The more civilized humans
became, building cities and forging trade routes to connect with other cities,
and waging wars with them, the more likely pandemics became. See a timeline
below of pandemics that, in ravaging human populations, changed history.
430 B.C.: Athens
The earliest recorded
pandemic happened during the Peloponnesian War. After the disease
passed through Libya, Ethiopia and Egypt, it crossed the Athenian walls as the
Spartans laid siege. As much as two-thirds of the population died.
The symptoms included
fever, thirst, bloody throat and tongue, red skin and lesions. The disease,
suspected to have been typhoid fever, weakened the Athenians significantly and
was a significant factor in their defeat by the Spartans.
165 A.D.: Antonine Plague
The Antonine plague was
possibly an early appearance of smallpox that began with the Huns. The Huns then infected the Germans, who
passed it to the Romans and then returning troops spread it throughout the Roman
empire. Symptoms included fever, sore throat, diarrhea and, if
the patient lived long enough, pus-filled sores. This plague continued until
about 180 A.D., claiming Emperor Marcus Aurelius as one of its victims.
250 A.D.: Cyprian Plague
Gangrenous hands |
Named after the first known
victim, the Christian bishop of Carthage, the Cyprian plague entailed diarrhea,
vomiting, throat ulcers, fever and gangrenous hands and feet.
City dwellers fled to the
country to escape infection but instead spread the disease further. Possibly
starting in Ethiopia, it passed through Northern Africa, into Rome, then onto
Egypt and northward.
There were recurring
outbreaks over the next three centuries. In 444 A.D., it hit Britain and
obstructed defense efforts against the Picts and the Scots, causing the British
to seek help from the Saxons, who would soon control the island.
541 A.D.: Justinian Plague
First appearing in Egypt,
the Justinian plague spread through Palestine and the Byzantine Empire, and then throughout
the Mediterranean.
The plague changed the
course of the empire, squelching Emperor Justinian's plans to bring the Roman
Empire back together and causing massive economic struggle. It is also credited
with creating an apocalyptic atmosphere that spurred the rapid spread of
Christianity.
Recurrences over the next
two centuries eventually killed about 50 million people, 26 percent of the
world population. It is believed to be the first significant appearance of the bubonic plague, which features enlarged
lymphatic gland and is carried by rats and spread by fleas.
11th Century: Leprosy
Though it had been around
for ages, leprosy grew into a pandemic in Europe in the Middle
Ages, resulting in the building of numerous leprosy-focused
hospitals to accommodate the vast number of victims.
A slow-developing bacterial
disease that causes sores and deformities, leprosy was believed to be a
punishment from God that ran in families. This belief led to moral judgments
and ostracization of victims. Now known as Hansen’s disease, it still afflicts
tens of thousands of people a year and can be fatal if not treated with
antibiotics.
1350: The Black Death
Responsible for the death
of one-third of the world population, this second large outbreak of the bubonic
plague possibly started in Asia and moved west in caravans. Entering through
Sicily in 1347 A.D. when plague sufferers arrived in the port of Messina, it
spread throughout Europe rapidly. Dead bodies became so prevalent that many
remained rotting on the ground and created a constant stench in cities.
England and France were so
incapacitated by the plague that the countries called a truce to their war. The
British feudal system collapsed when the plague changed economic circumstances
and demographics. Ravaging populations in Greenland, Vikings lost the strength to wage
battle against native populations, and their exploration of North America
halted.
1492: The Columbian Exchange
Following the arrival of the Spanish in the
Caribbean, diseases such as smallpox, measles and bubonic plague were passed
along to the native populations by the Europeans. With no previous exposure,
these diseases devastated indigenous people, with as many as 90 percent dying
throughout the north and south continents.
Upon arrival on the island
of Hispaniola, Christopher Columbus encountered the
Taino people, population 60,000. By 1548, the population stood at less than
500. This scenario repeated itself throughout the Americas.
In 1520, the Aztec Empire was destroyed by a
smallpox infection. The disease killed many of its victims and incapacitated
others. It weakened the population so they were unable to resist Spanish
colonizers and left farmers unable to produce needed crops.
Research in 2019 even concluded that the deaths of
some 56 million Native Americans in the 16th and 17th centuries, largely
through disease, may have altered Earth’s climate as vegetation growth on
previously tilled land drew more CO2 from the atmosphere and caused a cooling
event.
1665: The Great Plague of London
A graph showing the huge
increase in deaths during the Great Plague of London in 1665 and 1666. The
solid line shows all deaths and the broken line deaths attributed to plague.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In another devastating
appearance, the bubonic plague led to the deaths of 20 percent of London’s
population. As human death tolls mounted and mass graves appeared, hundreds of
thousands of cats and dogs were slaughtered as the possible cause and the
disease spread through ports along the Thames. The worst of the outbreak
tapered off in the fall of 1666, around the same time as another destructive
event—the Great Fire of London.
1817: First Cholera Pandemic
The first of seven cholera pandemics over the next 150
years, this wave of the small intestine infection originated in Russia, where
one million people died. Spreading through feces-infected water and food, the
bacterium was passed along to British soldiers who brought it to India where
millions more died. The reach of the British Empire and its navy spread cholera
to Spain, Africa, Indonesia, China, Japan, Italy, Germany and America, where it
killed 150,000 people. A vaccine was created in 1885, but pandemics continued.
1855: The Third Plague Pandemic
Starting in China and
moving to India and Hong Kong, the bubonic plague claimed 15 million victims.
Initially spread by fleas during a mining boom in Yunnan, the plague is
considered a factor in the Parthay rebellion and the Taiping rebellion. India
faced the most substantial casualties, and the epidemic was used as an excuse
for repressive policies that sparked some revolt against the British. The
pandemic was considered active until 1960 when cases dropped below a couple
hundred.
1875: Fiji Measles Pandemic
After Fiji ceded to the
British Empire, a royal party visited Australia as a gift from Queen Victoria. Arriving during a
measles outbreak, the royal party brought the disease back to their island, and
it was spread further by the tribal heads and police who met with them upon
their return.
Spreading quickly, the
island was littered with corpses that were scavenged by wild animals, and
entire villages died and were burned down, sometimes with the sick trapped
inside the fires. One-third of Fiji’s population, a total of 40,000 people,
died.
1889: Russian Flu
The first significant flu
pandemic started in Siberia and Kazakhstan, traveled to Moscow, and made its
way into Finland and then Poland, where it moved into the rest of Europe. By
the following year, it had crossed the ocean into North America and Africa. By
the end of 1890, 360,000 had died.
1918: Spanish Flu
The avian-borne flu that
resulted in 50 million deaths worldwide, the 1918 flu was first observed in Europe,
the United States and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world.
At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu
strain. Wire service reports of a flu outbreak in Madrid in the spring of
1918 led to the pandemic being called the “Spanish flu.”
By October, hundreds of
thousands of Americans died and body storage scarcity hit crisis level. But the
flu threat disappeared in the summer of 1919 when most of the infected had
either developed immunities or died.
1957: Asian flu
Starting in Hong Kong and
spreading throughout China and then into the United States, the Asian flu
became widespread in England where, over six months, 14,000 people died. A
second wave followed in early 1958, causing an estimated total of about 1.1
million deaths globally, with 116,000 deaths in the United States alone. A
vaccine was developed, effectively containing the pandemic.
1981: HIV/AIDS
First identified in 1981, AIDS destroys a person’s immune system,
resulting in eventual death by diseases that the body would usually fight off.
Those infected by the HIV virus encounter fever, headache, and enlarged lymph
nodes upon infection. When symptoms subside, carriers become highly infectious
through blood and genital fluid, and the disease destroys t-cells.
AIDS was first observed in
American gay communities but is believed to have developed from a chimpanzee
virus from West Africa in the 1920s. The disease, which spreads through certain
body fluids, moved to Haiti in the 1960s, and then New York and San Francisco
in the 1970s.
Treatments have been
developed to slow the progress of the disease, but 35 million people worldwide
have died of AIDS since its discovery, and a cure is yet to be found.
2003: SARS
First identified in 2003
after several months of cases, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is believed to
have possibly started with bats, spread to cats and then to humans in China,
followed by 26 other countries, infecting 8,096 people, with 774 deaths.
SARS is characterized by
respiratory problems, dry cough, fever and head and body aches and is spread
through respiratory droplets from coughs and sneezes.
Quarantine efforts proved
effective and by July, the virus was contained and hasn’t reappeared since.
China was criticized for trying to suppress information about the virus at the
beginning of the outbreak.
SARS was seen by global
health professionals as a wake-up call to improve outbreak responses, and
lessons from the pandemic were used to keep diseases like H1N1, Ebola and Zika
under control.
2019: COVID-19
This photo taken on
February 17, 2020 shows a man (L) who has displayed mild symptoms of the
COVID-19 coronavirus using a laptop at an exhibition centre converted into a
hospital in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
On March 11, 2020, the
World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 virus was officially a
pandemic after barreling through 114 countries in three months and infecting
over 118,000 people. And the spread wasn’t anywhere near finished.
COVID-19 is caused by a
novel coronavirus—a new coronavirus strain that has not been previously found
in people. Symptoms include respiratory problems, fever and cough, and can lead
to pneumonia and death. Like SARS, it’s spread through droplets from sneezes.
The first reported case in
China appeared November 17, 2019, in the Hubei Province, but went unrecognized.
Eight more cases appeared in December with researchers pointing to an unknown
virus.
Many learned
about COVID-19-19 when ophthalmologist Dr. Li Wenliang defied government
orders and released safety information to other doctors. The following day,
China informed and charged Li with a
crime. Li died from COVID-19 just over a month later.
Without a vaccine
available, the virus spread beyond Chinese borders and by mid-March, it had
spread globally to more than 163 countries. On February
11, the infection was officially Chris tened COVID-19.
With affection,
Ruben
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