What serious outbreaks have occurred in human history - the plague in China

The Black Death was called plague or plague in China, and like in Europe, the plague was recorded in Chinese historical records. In China's more than two thousand years of history, there are about 350 plagues in history. I can't repeat them all, but here are a few more famous outbreaks.

Since the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the epidemic of infectious diseases has shown a trend of increasing frequency and intensity, and reached the peak of the epidemic in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the beginning of the Three Kingdoms, it was the most drastic period of population decline in China's recorded history of more than three thousand years, with the population plummeting from more than 60 million to less than 15 million, in addition to the role of war and famine, the plague may be the number one killer.

In the classic battle of Chibi in the famous "Three Kingdoms", Sun Quan Liu Bei formed an alliance against 200,000 Cao troops, using fire to win more with less, and defeated the Cao army. The battle was won by the weak, and many people became famous because of it. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms- Book of Wei - Emperor Wu's First Chronicle clearly records that the real defeat of the Cao army in history was "gong to Chibi, and preparation for war, unfavorable." So the great plague, the officials and soldiers died, but the army was returned. This sentence is to say that Cao Cao fought Liu Bei at Chibi, and the battle situation was unfavorable, at this time there was a large-scale plague in Cao's army, losing many soldiers, and could only lead the army to retreat and return. In the novel, in order to highlight the characters, the role of fire attack may be strengthened, but in real history, the burning of Chibi is only a fuse, and the more important reason for Cao Cao's defeat is natural disasters, many soldiers died of plague, and the remaining people and troops were shaken and morale was low, so Cao Jun was unable to fight again.

The plague of the late Ming Dynasty, also known as the Plague of North China at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Great Plague of the Beijing Division, the Plague of the Late Ming Dynasty, and the Plague of Knots, refers to the great plague that appeared in northern China at the end of the reign of the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, which occurred in Shanxi in 1633 and spread to the surrounding areas of Beijing in 1641, affecting several provinces in Northern China. The plague killed more than 10 million people in North China, and 200,000 people in Beijing were killed by the plague, about a quarter of the total population at that time.

This plague is also a complete tragedy, Chongzhen 14 years later for 4 consecutive years of drought, grain failure, the people fell into famine, in order to avoid starvation, people ate everything they could eat, roadside bark and grass roots did not let go. And when they dig rat holes and eat rats and their stored grain, the rats leave behind the plague bacillus as a tool for revenge on human society. Some of the infected people died at that time, the bodies were buried, and the bacteria and viruses spread directly. And another part of the people did not die immediately after the infection, fled to various places, especially to the imperial city, the plague bacillus also brought over, the spring and summer season hot weather, bacteria and viruses quickly breeding and spreading, then the city of Beijing was like a "dead city". Although there were many reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, the plague caused by the plague was an important accelerator.

From the end of 1910 to March 1911, a plague pandemic broke out in the three eastern provinces of China, and in just half a year, more than 60,000 people died of infection. In Harbin, the center of the plague, according to statistics, a quarter of the people lost their lives.

The outbreak of the plague was at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing government did not properly prevent and control the epidemic at the beginning, causing many cluster infections, resulting in the gradual seriousness of the epidemic. At that time, when Russia and Japan were eyeing the northeast region of our country and were worried about internal and external troubles, the Qing government sent Wu Liande, who was then the deputy supervisor of the Tianjin Army Medical Hall, as the chief medical officer for plague prevention and control in the three eastern provinces, and went to the northeast to preside over epidemic prevention, which controlled the plague.

Wu Liande can be said to be the founder of China's health and epidemic prevention cause. It was he who discovered that the culprit of the plague was Y. pestis, and that Y. pestis had spread not from ordinary mice but from marmots (marmots). It was also he who found that this plague was different from the past, not through fleas to humans, but by droplets with bacteria in the air, spreading through breathing from person to person. The Qing government adopted its proposal to blockade Harbin and use quarantine to stop the spread of the epidemic southward. Finally, Wu Liande finally controlled the plague by a series of measures such as cremation of corpses, promotion of masks, cleaning and sanitation, and comprehensive disinfection.

The 1949 Zhangjiakou plague, the outbreak of pneumonic plague in early October in The Chaha League and Zhangjiakou in Chahar Province, was controlled and eliminated in early December, a total of 75 deaths, although not as serious as the above epidemics, but this is the first epidemic epidemic encountered after the founding of New China, and the source of the disease is only about 300 kilometers away from the capital Beijing, which is of great significance to China's disease prevention and control work.

Compared with smallpox and plague, cholera outbreak time is closer to us, but it also has a huge impact, and we will talk about it in the next issue!

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