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History of PANDEMICS
4 Big Pandemics
THREAD
1 — The Black Death
"By far the deadliest recorded pandemic, the Black Death probably originated somewhere in Asia in the 14th century.
4 Big Pandemics
THREAD
1 — The Black Death
"By far the deadliest recorded pandemic, the Black Death probably originated somewhere in Asia in the 14th century.
By 1347 it had reached Crimea, and from there the plague — which was carried in fleas that lived on and infected rats — spread through the rest of Europe and North Africa.
The first outbreak wiped out anywhere from a third to two-thirds of Europe at the time (75 million to 200 million people), while recurring waves of the bacterial disease continued to affect parts of the world for centuries."
"The Black Death caused massive upheavals in European society. Local parishioners led religious processions asking their God for help, while others whipped themselves in public in the belief it might ward off the disease.
“You have a really mass hysteria,” says Slavin, adding that, given the level of sudden death, the pope even allowed men and women to become bedside confessors since clerics were having a hard time keeping up with last rites.
Conspiracy theories also abounded as to who had caused the pandemic, prompting several massacres of Jews in Germany and the killings of people with leprosy.
Some cities practiced social distancing with some success. Only 15 percent of Milan’s population was
Some cities practiced social distancing with some success. Only 15 percent of Milan’s population was
wiped out, due possibly to some degree of social distancing, while the city that is now Dubrovnik instituted one of the earliest known public quarantine initiatives, sending newcomers to an offshore island for 40 days during an outbreak in 1377."
2 — The Justinianic Plague
"About 1,500 years ago, just as the Byzantine Empire was rising to dominance under Emperor Justinian I, plague struck the capital of Constantinople. It may not have been as devastating as the later plague of the 1300s, but the Justinianic Plague still
"About 1,500 years ago, just as the Byzantine Empire was rising to dominance under Emperor Justinian I, plague struck the capital of Constantinople. It may not have been as devastating as the later plague of the 1300s, but the Justinianic Plague still
cut a wide swath through parts of Europe and the Byzantine Empire. Caused by the same bacteria as the Black Death, the disease put a temporary stall on the war with the Sassanid Empire in Persia. Even Justinian himself contracted the disease in the 540s, though he recovered."
"Burial customs became rather hasty, and some citizens wore bracelets engraved with their names so people could identify them if they died away from home.
The working class had to keep working while some of the elites fled infected cities. But the streets were mostly empty in
The working class had to keep working while some of the elites fled infected cities. But the streets were mostly empty in
Constantinople, one of the largest cities in the world at the time with a population of about half a million. Many scholars believe that between a half and a quarter of the population of the city was killed during the pandemic"
"There were some rumors of disease profiteering in the form of the greedy looting of bodies, empty homes or even whole towns. And ghost stories circulated about malevolent demons or spirits that caused the pandemic"
3 — Cocoliztli Disease
"It was the 16th century and Mexico was still in the midst of massive cultural and social upheaval caused by the Spanish conquest and related smallpox pandemic, when the cocoliztli disease struck present-day Mexico City. The effects were devastating on --
"It was the 16th century and Mexico was still in the midst of massive cultural and social upheaval caused by the Spanish conquest and related smallpox pandemic, when the cocoliztli disease struck present-day Mexico City. The effects were devastating on --
-- the region and may have killed as many as tens of millions."
"Franciscan scholar Bernardino de Sahagún experienced three waves of the disease, recording them in the Florentine Codex — a massive work chronicling a number of aspects of Aztec life, beliefs and history. Sahagún
"Franciscan scholar Bernardino de Sahagún experienced three waves of the disease, recording them in the Florentine Codex — a massive work chronicling a number of aspects of Aztec life, beliefs and history. Sahagún
contracted the disease shortly after arriving in New Spain in 1545, then described the widespread effects of the second wave in 1576."
4 — The 1918 Flu
"The 1918 flu is often overshadowed by World War I, but the disease likely killed far more people than the fighting did.
"The 1918 flu is often overshadowed by World War I, but the disease likely killed far more people than the fighting did.
Often referred to by its misnomer, the “Spanish Flu” — due to the fact that Spain didn’t censor its newspapers about the spread of the disease the way other countries embroiled in the war did — the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza A virus may have killed 100 million people"
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HOOA.
