Infectious epidemics have always been the enemy of human civilization, even today, the world will still be a headache for large-scale epidemic diseases, and in the past, the level of science and technology backward in ancient times, if the outbreak of disease, how will the ancients respond?
Because they did not know the scientific principles of disease, in the past, in the face of various epidemics, people often called them plagues, which often broke out after wars, famines, and droughts.
The "Zhou Li" once recorded: "The disease doctor is in charge of the diseases of all the people, and there are boils and diseases at four o'clock", and Lü Shi Chunqiu mentioned: "If the spring of the season is summer, then the people will have many diseases." "It shows the medical knowledge at the time, and people realized that if the seasons are abnormal, then there is a high probability that diseases will occur." Yet the plague was far more terrifying than imagined.
At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms were in turmoil, drought and war led to large-scale plagues that were uneven, wave after wave, Zhang Jiao formed the Yellow Turban Army, it was in the name of Fu Shui to save people, Zhang Zhongjing recalled in the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases": "The Yu clan is multi-faceted, xiang Yu two hundred. Since the Jian'an Chronicle (196 AD), there have been no more than ten people, and its deaths have been two out of three, and typhoid fever has been in the seventh place. Cao Zhi also mentioned in "Speaking of Epidemic Qi": "There is the pain of zombies in the family, and there is the mourning of the trumpet in the room." Or close the door and die, or overthrow the family and die. Among the seven sons of the famous Jian'an, Xu Gan, Chen Lin, Liu Zhen, and Ying Yue all died of the plague in 217, which shows the destructive power of the ancient plague.
The imperial court and people naturally did not sit still for the plague, what did they do? First of all, it is to cut off the way of transmission, during the Qing Dynasty, the smallpox epidemic killed many people, especially the Manchus, who were very resistant to this disease, and the folk legend said that "the Manchus are afraid of pox like tigers." "Therefore, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty issued many decrees that once the epidemic occurred, it must be immediately blocked, and those who have acne are strictly prohibited from leaving, and those who do not have acne but appear in the epidemic area must be sent to remote areas for isolation, and for those who report the epidemic in time or bury the death of smallpox without authorization, the imperial court must be seriously criminalized." In the second year of Shunzhi, the Emperor issued an edict: "All people who have acne should immediately move out of the city forty miles for quarantine." ”
At the beginning of the Qin Dynasty, China has established the world's earliest leprosy hospital in history: the Furuncle Relocation Institute, which is a special place for receiving lepers, "Qin Tomb Bamboo Jane": "Furuncles, what is the discussion?" When the furuncle is relocated. Later, there were also furuncles temples and furuncles for the reception of lepers, and the Taiping Guangji wrote that in the Tang Dynasty, "Fang yu was built in Shaanxi City, and the Longguang Temple was built in an open space, and a sick place was built, and hundreds of patients were often nursed." The "Yuan He Zhi" says: "Tang Zhide's second year of winter month Bing Yin, built a nursing home in Jingyang. ”
Who were the most active bureaucrats in the ancient fight against the epidemic? Perhaps everyone will be surprised, that is, the usurper Wang Mang, when the Western Han Ping Emperor was 9 years old, Wang Mang was in charge, when a serious drought and locust plague broke out in Qingzhou, hunger directly led to the plague, under the leadership of Sima Wang Mang, more than 200 officials and people voluntarily donated fields and houses to provide rescue places, the disaster area also reduced taxes, Wang Mang also built a Luli in Chang'an City, placed the sick in it, the affected counties, county officials will give rations to those disaster victims, and the victims will also get land and living utensils after recovering from illness. This also made Wang Mang win the hearts of the people.
There is also the source of the control of the disaster, the Plague of Qianzhou between the Song Shenzong, the initiator is precisely because of the polluted water source, until the new Zhizhou Liu Yi began to take preventive measures, the idea of "rain and sewage separation" designed the famous drainage system "Fushougou", the epidemic was controlled.
People have also begun to use rhubarb Chinese medicine widely to fight the epidemic. Zhang Zhongjing's "Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases" has many precious prescriptions. Of course, there is scientific control, but there are also some superstitions in it, such as the Zhang Jiao mentioned earlier in the Han Dynasty, encouraging the people to drink water to cure diseases, but whether you can cure it depends on whether you are religious or not.
Because of insufficient understanding and the lack of means of prevention and control of epidemic diseases in the past, the plague has always been a very deep disaster.