Plague - global assassins in history

In 430 BC, during the Peloponnesian war in ancient Greece, the people of Athens were attacked by a mysterious disease, which caused so terrible consequences that they now read the writings of historians and people. I still have to shudder.

Greek historian Thucydides

Greek historian Thucydides survived a deadly pandemic and left vivid descriptions of its symptoms.

" The healthy man suddenly felt dizzy like being hit hard by the heat flowing from the top of his head, like a fire in his eyes, in his body, in his throat and tongue, breathing out an unusual smell and stinking "Thucydides wrote.

But that's just the beginning - followed by sneezing, coughing, diarrhea, vomiting and tightness. Next, the patient's skin becomes bluish gray, pimples and sores, then thirsty throat. Most patients die around the 7th or 8th day of the disease caused by pimples, diarrhea combined with exhaustion. Some survived, but the illness left sequelae on their bodies - fingers toes, genitalia disappeared, blind eyes. Some others lost their memories, they did not know that they were not recognized by friends.

That was the first record of a pandemic in the world.

Thucydides said the disease comes from Ethiopia, spread to Egypt and Libya and then to Greece. Within four years, it killed one-third of the Athens population and army, including this ancient urban leader.

Therefore, it may not be surprising why the pandemic comes from the Greek language, in which "pan" means "all" and demos "is" .

In the 2nd century AD, the power of the European dynasties overwhelmed Rome, thanks in part to their expeditionary armies. But in 165, after the army returned from the campaign from the East, they brought a disease that killed about 5 million people.

This " killer " was named Antonine Plague , after the name of one of the two Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (he died of the disease). It kills a quarter of people infected.

In 166, the Greek physician Galen traveled from Rome to what is today Turkey, recording some of the assassin 's symptoms. He described that the disease causes fever, diarrhea and dryness of the throat, dryness or acne on the skin. Later scholars concluded that the pandemic was probably smallpox .

Another outbreak of smallpox occurred during the years 251 and 266, when the peak killed 5,000 people a day in Rome alone.

But these terrible numbers are still nothing compared to a 6th century disaster, when another " assassin " attacked the city of Constantinople (now Istanbul), under the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

The plague is thought to have originated from Ethiopia or Egypt and spread north through grain merchant ships. It is transmitted from live parasites on mice that snuggle in the ships. And this is the first plague in the world to be recorded.

Within two years, the plague killed 40% of Constantinople's population. Byzantine-era historian Procopius noted that at the height of the plague, the plague of death plagueed 10,000 city dwellers every day.

Plague spreads throughout the eastern Mediterranean, causing a quarter of the population to die.

The second plague broke out in 588, with a more terrible level and spreading to France. The number of people killed by this murderer amounted to 25 million.

Within 800 years, Europe was not attacked by any pandemic, but by the middle of the 14th century, the plague returned. This time it was named Black Death . This name comes from the fact that the skin of infected people turns darker due to the black particles beneath the skin, similar to the symptoms of the ill-fated eight centuries ago.

People evacuated to escape the epidemic, but made it even more widespread across the continent. In 3 years since 1347, Black Death killed about a quarter of the European population - 25 million people. At the same time, the plague raged in Asia and the Middle East, causing a global pandemic .

Plague broke out many times in Europe, each time stronger than the last, and only eased when humanity entered the 18th century. Until then, the total number of victims of this disease was recorded at about 137. million. Urban areas are the worst affected, with a loss of about 50% of the population in each pandemic.

Cholera , first recognized in the 16th century by Portuguese medical doctor Garcia de Orta, has not spread to the world until 1816.

That year, the disease raged in India, after which it followed trade routes into Russia and Eastern Europe before flooding into Western Europe and North America.

The world struggled with at least 7 cholera epidemics , of which 6 occurred in the 19th century, in which all continents were attacked, except Antarctica. The most recent outbreak was in 1961 in Indonesia, but thanks to hygienic conditions, the level of massacre was much reduced. And so far the description is still one of the silent killers.

If the 19th century was the time of the left, then the next 100 years was the era of influenza , with three great pandemics.

The biggest and most deadly flu pandemic is Spanish flu , which appeared in 1918 with the three largest outbreaks in France, the US and Sierra Leone. The disease causes a very high death rate and often kills people aged 20-40, while seemingly " lighter " with the elderly and young children.

Spanish flu moves at a rate that terrifies people, kills 25 million people within 6 months, and one fifth of the world's population is infected.

This assassin disappeared as quickly as it appeared, but the result it left behind was about 40 million corpses, more than those who perished in World War I.

T. Huyen ( according to BBC )