Today, the coronavirus sweeping the world still shows no signs of receding. From the discovery of the new coronavirus in early 2020 to the end of 2022, the virus has mutated several times, bringing a huge impact on human life. The scale of this outbreak, the number of infected people, and the length of its duration should be rare in history.
So what are the most influential diseases in history? And how did they disappear?
1. Plague
Just mentioning the name plague will make people palpitate. The plague caused several great catastrophes in human history, changing the course of human history more than once.
According to historical records, from 540 AD to the mid-8th century, the first plague epidemic. This plague hastened the demise of the ancient Roman Empire. At the height of the epidemic, 10,000 people died of plague every day in Constantinople (Istanbul Budding), spreading like wildfire, from coastal ports to inland towns. It is estimated that one in four people in Europe's Mediterranean Rim may have died within a few years of the outbreak.
In the 30s of the 14th century - the 18th century, the second plague pandemic, there were many serious outbreaks in Europe. From 1347 to 1353, the Black Death outbreak, the deadliest large-scale infectious disease in human history. In Europe alone, at least 25 million people have died from the disease. In terms of the proportion of people who died, this was the largest demographic crisis of the Middle Ages.
From the beginning of 1855 to the end of the 19th century, the third plague pandemic. In 1910-1911, pneumonic plague began to endure in northeast China. The epidemic was caused by the flourishing local marmot fur trade, where hunters caught the fungal marmots and ate marmot meat. The disease broke out along the newly built railway line, killing 60,000 people.
The term "Black Death" appeared later than the plague, and "black" refers to the black body after death, and on the other hand, it is used to allude to people's fear of this plague. At the time, it was called the "Great Death" or "Great Disease."
Most historians believe that the Black Death and later plague epidemics were collective names for diseases such as bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, and septicaemic plague.
In 1894, Alexander A. Jessen confirmed the plague bacterium, and the following year, Jessen and others developed anti-plague serum from horse blood to enhance human immunity. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Plague Research Committee confirmed the role of rats and fleas in the spread of plague. Until the 50s of the 20th century, two antibiotics, streptomycin and gentamicin, were used to treat plague, and plague did not cause mass human death. However, in the 21st century, there are about 2,000 new cases every year, and mankind has not eradicated the plague, but has coexisted with it for a long time.
2. Malaria
Malaria is a life-threatening parasitic disease that is transmitted from person to person through the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Malaria is one of the most serious human health problems in the world today, affecting 300 million to 500 million people and 1 million to 3 million deaths each year, most of them infants and children.
Once widespread worldwide, malaria is now found in 100 countries in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In some of the world's poorest regions, malaria takes a toll on local people.
In 2700 BC, malaria was written. In 1922-1923, the malaria epidemic that hit modern Europe most severely, from Soviet Russia north through the Volga Basin to the Arctic Circle, infected an estimated 7 million to 12 million people and killed thousands. Malaria also became the leading cause of illness and death during the Second World War.
In the 30s of the 20th century, newly synthesized antimalarial drugs appeared. In 1939, Swiss chemist Müller synthesized and invented the insecticide DDT, which was used to kill body lice and effectively control typhus, malaria and yellow fever. In the 70s of the 20th century, China rediscovered Artemisia annua as an effective antimalarial drug. Chinese scientist Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for creating the antimalarial drug artemisinin, the only Chinese scientist to receive this award.
Artemisinin combination therapies are effective in treating malaria and preventing its spread, yet the cost of treatment remains a test in many countries, and in some poor countries, malaria remains the leading cause of child mortality. While increasing funding for malaria, the World Health Organization is also promoting simpler and more cost-effective solutions, especially the use of insecticide-impregnated bed nets, which can effectively prevent mosquito bites and malaria transmission.
3. Influenza
Often referred to as the "flu", influenza is a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects the upper respiratory tract. Over the past 500 years, many outbreaks of influenza in winter and spring have been recorded, but the influenza that had the greatest impact in history and caused a world pandemic occurred in 1918-1919, the Spanish flu.
The Spanish flu has killed more than 50 million people worldwide, the most in human history in a single pandemic.
One of the most widespread flu was the Russian flu, which appeared in St. Petersburg in December 1889, and in the following spring, hundreds of millions of people fell ill, with a mortality rate of less than 1%, mostly young and old. However, when the Spanish flu broke out, 20 million people died in six months, and more than half of the deaths occurred in people aged 20-40.
The Spanish flu came so quickly and suddenly, that no one knew where the disease first appeared or how it spread. It broke out rapidly in late 1918 and spread around the world, and again the following winter, but disappeared quickly and mysteriously in the spring of 1920.
Later scientific studies showed that influenza was a virus, and the reason why it was so lethal in 1918-1919 was because the virus attacked the lungs, causing secondary bacterial pneumonia, and there were no antibiotics at that time, which led to one of the reasons for the high mortality rate.
Later, with the disappearance of the Spanish flu, the mainstream view was that the virus was too strong, the host disappeared, and the virus disappeared. The cunning virus has undergone several mutations, becoming less virulent and more contagious in order to achieve the purpose of coexistence with humans.
The new coronavirus is very similar to the influenza virus, the virus has mutated again and again, the transmission ability is getting stronger and stronger, but the virulence is getting weaker and weaker, and finally it is tamed by humans. We have changed from the initial fear, anxiety, and talking about "yang" to the current calm, orderly and optimistic. are inseparable from the understanding of the disease.
Fear does not necessarily come from the thing itself, but also from the unknown. In the long history of fighting disease, humanity has been both small and great. Viruses have been "long inhabitants" of the earth for 3 billion years, and we don't know enough about them.
In the list of human anti-epidemics, the only virus that has really been eliminated is smallpox. Like plague, cholera and malaria, although effectively suppressed, they still demonize from time to time. We still need to be humble, care for the environment, protect nature, and cherish the present.
History is not a mirror, and the wisdom drawn from history is clear. Want to know more about the story behind the disease, I recommend this "Illustrated History of Disease" to everyone.
This book introduces us to 30 important diseases from four parts: "bacterial diseases", "parasitic diseases", "viral diseases" and "lifestyle diseases". This book uses pictures and words to tell the story behind the disease, and it also contains 30 major events, 80 encyclopedias, 200 pictures, 300 documents, and 7,000 years of world civilization history... It is authoritative, popular, and interesting.