Historical pandemics

PANDEMICS IN HISTORY

Plague in Italy, 17th Century

Present and past pandemics

This blog was originally intended to be about pandemics throughout prehistory and history,  particularly about how they have changed and and sometimes helped to destroy the globalised societies in which they have occurred.

Much of the blog will however concentrate on the current Coronavirus pandemic. This is a typical plague in many respects, and entirely new in a few others..

Like earlier pandemics there is no treatment for the COVID-19 disease. It has been spread rapidly and widely, into what are believed to be completely unexposed populations, often by international travellers. It many places the medical system is unable to cope. It is accompanied by great, potentially game-changing economic loss for all of society.

There are a few significant peculiarities or differences with COVID-19 in the modern environment:

• deaths occur only among the very old. Children are largely unaffected.
• medical care, if not overextended, is much higher quality in modern times with the availability of genetic testing and respirators - if they can be found
• infected individuals can now be tracked by governments prepared to do this, making it possible to locate and isolate infection clusters rapidly.Infection and mortality figures can be observed almost in real time.
• information technology is very much more advanced, enabling the sequestration of the whole population while keeping much of society running and providing home entertainment.

In this blog I will explain and codify the progress of the COVID-19 disease,what the impact is on society, what interventions appear to work for health and for the economy, and mistakes made.

Later I will examine various society-destroying pandemics, of which the most familiar are the killer diseases brought to the New World by European colonisers, resulting in the decimation of indigenous populations.

Index to ancient and historical pandemics

The various pandemics include:

• the interaction of early home sapiens with Neanderthals - perhaps the first example of how disease can act as defence as well as an assault weapon
• the collapse of the Neolithic 3000 BC -  probably the greatest pandemics in Eurasia, ever
• the collapse of the Bronze Age 1150 BC
• the Irish pandemic of 100 BC
• the collapse of the Roman Empire 400 AD
• the Black Death 1350-1650 AD
• the English Sweating Sickness 1400 AD
• Guns, germs and the Age of Exploration 1492-1850 AD.
• Malaria
• Spanish Influenza
• AIDS

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