While the Annual Influenza Epidemic is walking around the country and crowds are buying respirators in panic, we invite you to remember the good old days, when pharmaceuticals were not yet as developed as they are now, and really dangerous diseases ruled over the planet.
Plague
One of the most terrible diseases that has significantly reduced the population of the planet is the plague (in all its varieties).
The first mentions of the disease were found by archaeologists in cuneiform texts on clay tablets. Infection carried by rats, marmots, mice and - all of a sudden! - camels, has also managed to light up in many other historical sources. Including in the Bible - in the part where the names of the existing kings and descriptions of real battles are mentioned, and not in the part where the bearded guy walks on water.
The most global plague epidemic is considered to be the "black death" - a bubonic form of infection that struck Europe, Asia and Africa in the middle of the XIV century. Around 1340, traders and Mongolian nomads brought the disease to Europe along the Silk Road, for whom the marmot chop was something of a marbled beef steak for the modern gourmet.
Having reached the European population, suffering from unsanitary conditions and the effects of decades of drought and famine, the plague unfolded in full force. According to modern researchers, the epidemic killed almost 60 million people, and in some Spanish and Italian provinces the death rate was 90%. Medieval medicine, which offered treatment by inhaling the smell of fragrant herbs and applying frog and snake skins to buboes, did not contribute to recovery in any way.
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The pandemic had long-term consequences in all spheres of life: in religion, economy, culture and even genetics. For example, it turned out that people with the first blood group were more susceptible to the plague, so after the epidemic in Europe mainly people with the second and third groups remained (the fourth was always a rare phenomenon). It was possible to get rid of this imbalance only by the beginning of the 20th century.
Smallpox
Smallpox is another of the diseases noted in the ancient chronicles. At the moment, many scientists share the opinion that the virus came from the Middle East, and the first patients contracted it from camels. (Again! Extremely suspicious, huh?).
Treatment of patients with smallpox.
In the IV-VIII centuries, the smallpox epidemic struck Asian countries, especially seriously affecting the demographic situation in Japan, in some areas of which up to 70% of the population died.
In the Middle Ages, the virus reached Europe and quickly became a habit among ordinary people - it took only a hundred years for almost every inhabitant of the Old World to have had time to get sick with this disease. In the 1520s, European explorers and colonialists caused the first smallpox epidemic in America. The virus they brought in instantly struck the unprepared immunity of the indigenous population, whole Indian tribes disappeared forever from the face of the earth.
Smallpox vaccination began at the end of the 18th century, and by the mid-1980s the disease had been completely eradicated worldwide. At the moment, the smallpox virus exists in two places: in the CDC laboratory (Atlanta) and at the Vector Science Center (Novosibirsk).
Typhus
There are several types of typhus, but the most dangerous of them is typhus. The first mention of typhus dates back to 1489. The disease was recorded in participants in the Granada War (about 17 thousand soldiers died precisely because of the infection).
Typhoid patients during World War II.
Subsequently, typhoid outbreaks have always accompanied wars, thanks to which it was possible to establish carriers of the infection - body lice and head lice. Soldiers, as well as sailors and prisoners, forced to spend time crowded in small, unsuitable for living rooms, quickly became the target of head lice and typhoid. In 1812, more people died from illness in the ranks of the Napoleonic army than those who died in battles.
The real pandemic broke out during the Civil War in post-revolutionary Russia. A tenth of almost 30 million people who were infected died, and, contrary to established practice, civilians died.
In 1942, the Soviet scientist Alexei Pshenichnov developed a vaccine against typhus, which made it possible to avoid another epidemic during the Great Patriotic War and later almost completely eliminate typhus in developed countries.
Anthrax (anthrax)
Anthrax is rightfully considered one of the most dangerous infections in the world: the incubation period lasts only a couple of days, and bacterial spores can persist for years.
Anthrax disputes.
The first descriptions of the disease date back to the middle of the 18th century, and already in 1788 the first major epidemic occurred in the Western Siberian provinces (hence the Russian-language name for the infection). The carriers of bacteria are livestock: horses, donkeys, sheep and camels (something must be done with camels!).
One of the largest outbreaks of anthrax in the 20th century was the epidemic in Sverdlovsk. Nearly 100 people died from April to June 1979. According to official Soviet data, contaminated meat was the cause of the epidemic, but witnesses and researchers argued that the blame was the release of a cloud of spores from the territory of the military biological laboratory.
Despite the existence of a vaccine and active antibiotics, mortality from some forms of anthrax is still 95%.
Spaniard
Returning to the flu, one cannot fail to note the "success" that this disease achieved during the First World War.
In 1918, around 550 million people fell ill with influenza A / H1N1 worldwide, one fifth of whom died. Thus, in just a year, the world's population decreased by almost 3%.
Since the governments of the countries involved in the war were reluctant to admit the presence of cases of illness in the ranks of their military personnel, neutral Spain was honored to become the first state in which the presence of a pandemic was recognized. That is why the dangerous form of influenza was named "Spanish flu". The reason for the rapid spread of infection was technical progress: infected people, moving in airships, trains and high-speed liners, spread the Spanish flu all over the world with lightning speed.
The flu retreated as quickly as it appeared. For example, in Philadelphia in October 1918, about 5 thousand people died every week, and new cases of infection stopped in November.
In 2002, scientists managed to restore the structure of the flu by studying the body of an Eskimo woman who died from the Spanish flu in 1918 and was buried in the permafrost. Based on research, a vaccine was created that was used during the 2009 flu epidemic.
And here, by the way, is the release of our video podcast "MAXIM voice acting", in which we tell (with pictures) about the Spanish woman.
Anna Minkina