People broke public health laws during the 17th-century plague in Italy, but there were clergymen who intervened. Introduction Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts between religious freedom and public health regulations have been playing out in courts around the world. Churches from California to Maine have flouted public health orders by convening in[…]
Societies and cultures that seem ossified and entrenched were suddenly open to conquest, innovation, and social change. Introduction Before March of this year, few probably thought disease could be a significant driver of human history. Not so anymore. People are beginning to understand that the little changes COVID-19 has already ushered in or accelerated –[…]
In medieval times natural phenomena, such as comets and eclipses, were regarded as portents of natural disasters, including plagues. Introduction On August 30 2019, a comet from outside our solar system was observed by amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov at the MARGO observatory in Crimea. This was only the second time an interstellar comet had ever[…]
From ancient times different populations have adopted varying strategies to prevent and contain disease. By Dr. Gian Franco Gensini, Dr. Magdi H. Yacoub, and Dr. Andrea A. Conti Abstract The concept of ‘quarantine’ is embedded in health practices, attracting heightened interest during episodes of epidemics. The term is strictly related to plague and dates back[…]
The impact of the bubonic plague epidemics of the past still echoes across the centuries. Introduction The Roman physician Galen coined the term ‘plague’ to describe any quickly spreading fatal disease. Epidemics of all kinds have been described as plagues, but the bubonic plague is a very specific disease that first spread around the world[…]
The plague remained endemic for 300 years, returning every so often to cull the population. Introduction In the 20th and 21st centuries, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and the threat of bioterror attacks have raised questions about the role of the physician in response to epidemics. Modern medical ethics, with its[…]
Poe’s story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death. Introduction “The Masque of the Red Death” (originally published as “The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy”) is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows[…]
A full reading of Poe’s work. By Edgar Allan Poe (1842) The Masque of the Red Death is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The work follows in full (public domain): The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so[…]
How he chronicled, commemorated, and mourned his many loved ones who succumbed. This article, Petrarch’s Plague: Love, Death, and Friendship in a Time of Pandemic, was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ The Italian poet and scholar Francesco Petrarch lived through[…]
With the plague decimating the ranks of laborers, surviving workers rebelled against the crown’s higher taxes and restrictive labor laws. Introduction As a professor of medieval Europe, I’ve taught the bubonic plague, and how it contributed to the English Peasant Revolt of 1381. When a deadly disease started to spread, the most vulnerable and powerless[…]
The plague swept through Christian Europe and Islamdom at roughly the same time – between 1347 and 1351. Pandemics are nothing new—they scythed through the ancient world as they did the pre-modern and, as we know to our grief and confusion, they are still mowing us down today. We might think that human nature is[…]
The costumes were meant to combat the contagious miasma. This article, Plague Doctor Costumes, was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ Today, with the coronavirus now officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, images of hazmat suits and medical[…]
This article, London’s Dreadful Visitation: A Year of Weekly Death Statistics during the Great Plague (1665), was originally published in The Public Domain Review under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. If you wish to reuse it please see: https://publicdomainreview.org/legal/ Epidemics are on all our minds right now. Probably many of us could use a break from the[…]
There was a brief moment in 1381 when a better world struggled to be born, but the promise of that moment was deferred. On July 13th in 1381, a garrison of rebelling peasants from Norfolk, Essex, and Kent marched into London, the gates of the city left open either out of sympathy for the cause of[…]
The Plague ushered in a new understanding which found expression in movements such as the Protestant Reformation and the Renaissance. Introduction The outbreak of plague in Europe between 1347-1352 CE – known as the Black Death – completely changed the world of medieval Europe. Severe depopulation upset the socio-economic feudal system of the time but[…]
People reacted with hopeful cures and responses based on religious belief. Introduction The Black Death of 1347-1352 CE is the most infamous plague outbreak of the medieval world, unprecedented and unequaled until the 1918-1919 CE flu pandemic in the modern age. The cause of the plague was unknown and, in accordance with the general understanding[…]
Since no one knew what caused the disease, no cure was possible, but this did not stop people from trying what they could. Introduction The Black Death is the 19th-century CE term for the plague epidemic that ravaged Europe between 1347-1352 CE, killing an estimated 30 million people there and many more worldwide as it[…]
We get our English word for poison or toxin form the Greek word toxikon. By Thomas J. JohnsonRetired Program Director, Respiratory CareLong Island University In Sophocles’ play Philoctetes (404 B.C.E.), he describes the main character Philoctetes as wounded by a poisoned arrow on his way to the Trojan War. This is the stuff of legend[…]
Reports reached London in 1720 and 1721 that the plague had already killed tens of thousands in Marseilles. Almost three hundred years ago, in 1722, shortly after he published Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe wrote a similarly fact-based fictional narrative—A Journal of the Plague Year—to warn of what to expect if the bubonic plague were to afflict[…]
We can now catch tiny pieces of DNA from ancient diseases and look for clues about how their genes have changed over time. Introduction The Black Death is without a doubt one of the most famous infectious diseases in history. Sweeping across Asia and Europe during the mid-fourteenth century, it reduced European populations by as[…]
People felt overwhelmed as it seems as though they believed that what had happened to others elsewhere could not possibly happen to them. Introduction Throughout history, epidemics and pandemics of plague and other diseases have caused widespread panic and social disorder even, in some instances, when the people of one region were aware of a[…]
The first definitive outbreak of plague was the Plague of Justinian as recorded by Procopius which killed an estimated 50 million people. Introduction Disease has been a part of the human condition since the beginning of recorded history – and no doubt earlier – decimating populations and causing widespread social upheaval. Among the worst infections[…]
Despite the plague’s high contagiousness and terrifying symptoms, life in Elizabethan England went on. By Lindsey Rachel Hunt William Shakespeare died 400 years ago, in April of 2016. But, thanks to the plague’s many sweeps through London, he could have actually died much, much sooner. While the plague hit London particularly hard in 1665, it[…]
The Greeks treated their city-states like bodies. To protect them from disasters, it was the poor that were often sacrificed. Introduction With the spread of the coronavirus, the world is becoming pointedly aware of the extent to which human beings are interconnected. The rapid spread of the virus has highlighted how much we are dependent[…]
It is a shared affliction, our collective ailment, our common humanity, that gives rise to irrational behavior but also kindness. Sometime during the year 541, a few rats found their way into Byzantium. Soon more would arrive in the city. Whether they came from ships unloading cargo in Constantinople’s bay, or overland in carts bringing[…]
The cause of the plague was unknown until the 19th century CE. Introduction The word ‘plague’, in defining a lethal epidemic, was coined by the physician Galen (l. 130-210 CE) who lived through the Antonine Plague (165 – c. 180/190 CE) but the disease was recorded long before in relating the affliction of the Plague[…]
The Code of Hammurabi and writings from ancient Greeks mention this “lung wasting” disease and their treatments for it. By Dr. John Frith Phthisis, Consumption, and the White Plague Overview A phthitic soldier is to his roommates what a glandered horse is to its stablemates.[1] Jean Antoine Villemin, French Army surgeon, 1865 Tuberculosis is an[…]
There have been three great world pandemics of bubonic plague recorded, in 541, 1347, and 1894 CE. By John Frith The Three Great Pandemics Overview Plague is an acute infectious disease caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis and is still endemic in indigenous rodent populations of South and North America, Africa and Central Asia. In[…]
Disease-bearing mice from lower Egypt reached the harbor town of Pelusium in 540 CE. By Thomas H. Maugh IIStaff WriterLos Angeles Times Introduction By the middle of the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian had spread his Byzantine Empire around the rim of the Mediterranean and throughout Europe, laying the groundwork for what he hoped would[…]
Plagues functioned as a setup for an even more crucial theme in ancient myth: a leader’s intelligence. Introduction In the fifth century B.C., the playwright Sophocles begins “Oedipus Tyrannos” with the title character struggling to identify the cause of a plague striking his city, Thebes. (Spoiler alert: It’s his own bad leadership.) As someone who[…]