From 1620 to 2020: How pandemics have threatened humanity every 100 years , Why history repeated again and again?
Our Earth is a very good thing in itself; different kinds of people live with humans on this planet, and nature has gathered everyone together. But humans have always ignored it, and they have always done their own arbitrary. In return, nature has always done something that has caused great harm to humans, now whether it is financial wise or humans life wise (like Earthquake, Tsunami, Disease-Epidemic, Flood, Emergency Conditions etc.). It has always very worst things for humans; But humans don't understand sign of earth. When man has manipulated with nature more and more, then nature has done something that has endangered human life.
Many people got problems for this and many humans lost
their lives too, but humans do not understand the signs of nature. Today i am
just giving my some opinions on this topic. And I have done a lot of research
on this topic and i found that every 100 years in the world something happens,
which causes great harm to humans. I have researched the last 500 years, and I
have found some information about terrible events. Many of you may be aware of
this, but still, this information is for those who do not know. In recent
decades, the issue of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases has become
an increasingly important area of concern in public health. Today, like
centuries ago, infectious diseases are confronting us with the fear of death
and have heavily influenced social behaviours and policy decisions at local,
national and international levels. It is not understood why such diseases spread
after every 100 years as an epidemic, and what is the scientific reason behind
of this.
Throughout history, disease outbreaks have devastated humanity,
sometimes changing the course of history, and sometimes signalling the end of
entire civilizations. In exactly the same way, as I have mentioned in my
comments above that, an epidemic definitely occurs every 100 years. When i got
this information, so i have searched some little about this and i shocked, i
found that after every 100 years someone or someone epidemic spreads in the
world. So guys without time wasting let’s start this topic.
THE NATURE OF THE
EPIDEMIC
"How strangely they have decreased by the Hand of God… and it hath generally been observed that where the English come to settle, a Divine Hand makes way for them.” – Daniel Denton, Early American Colonist
“The woods were almost cleared of these precious creatures, to make room for a better growth.” – Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana
1. European Plague in Native New England: 1619 -1620
Plague repeatedly struck the cities of North Africa. Algiers
(Algiers is the capital city of Algeria,) lost 30,000–50,000 to it
in 1620–21, and again in 1654–57, 1665, 1691, and
1740–42. Plague remained a major event in Ottoman society until the second
quarter of the 19th century. The Pilgrims, European Plague in Native New
England, 1616-1620. In 1618-19, devastating diseases carried by European
fishermen and traders swept down the Maine coast into Massachusetts. In some
affected Native communities, between 50 and 90 percent of the population died.
In 1620 a comet was followed by a cold winter. In England, this year was
distinguished by a violent tempest, a preternatural tide, and a very wet
summer. The Hungarian fever, so called spread along the Rhine, and in the next
year became infectious London become sickly. The year 1620 was remarkable for
an epidemic malignant small-pox. Remarkably an infectious disease such as
plague, which is disseminated from one country to another mainly by commercial
transportation, remains today as it was in the distant past a threat for human
societies.
In 1620, at the height of the epidemic a strange comet appeared over the
skies of New England. The great medicine men of the Wampanoag’s and
Penacook’s ominously interpreted this event as confirmation that the terrible
sickness would soon overtake the land. They were not wrong, the iconic 1620
Mayflower voyage was a miserable one. After two months at sea, the pilgrims
arrived at Cape Cod, they were ill starved and unprepared for the coming
winter. Descending like a pack of wild dogs, like a pack of wild dogs, they
broke through the fields and graved of the home, where the graves of the
recently deceased residents were looking for food. Disease continued to ravage
the Massachusetts Bay shoreline, wiping out the native populations by the
thousands. Reports from the period involving the epidemic covered an area that
spanned from the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers of southern Maine to the
Narragansett Bay of Rhode Island, with the highest rate of fatalities centered
around Boston Harbor and Plymouth Bay. Sailing along the Massachusetts coast in
1619, Captain Thomas Dermer described the impact on the region noting that
“ancient plantations not long since populous now utterly void in other places a
remnant remains but not free of sickness."
The Wampanoags called it “The Great Dying”. The early English colonists
referred to it alternately as “Indean fever” “a prodigious pestilence” “a great
sickness” “a sweeping mortality” or else simply, “the plague”. According to
medical historian Timothy Bratton, it was a “disease originated in Europe and
represented a classic ‘virgin soil’ encounter between Amerindians and alien
contagion”. But its actual identity still remains a mystery. What little is known
about the epidemic is based on the accounts of native survivors (conveyed via
serious language barrier), the reports of a few European explorers and
missionaries who were present during the time of outbreak, and the testimonies
of the early colonists who settled the area soon after. The accepted facts are
that it was a disease that had an extremely high mortality rate and symptoms
included severe headache, nose bleeding, and muscle pains and cramping,
yellowing of the skin, lung congestion, haemorrhaging and lingering pockmarks.2. Great Plague of Marseille: 1720-1722
Historical records say that the "Great Plague
of Marseille" started when a ship called Grand-Saint-Antoine entered in
Marseille, France, carrying a cargo of goods from the eastern Mediterranean.
Although the ship was quarantined, plague still got into the city likely
through fleas on plague-infected rodents. Throughout history, plague
outbreaks prevailed on numerous occasions in Mediterranean harbours, including
Marseille in the south of France. The Great Plague of Marseille was the last of
the significant European outbreak of bubonic plague. Arriving
in Marseille France in 1720, the disease killed a total of
100,000 people (50,000 in the city during the next two years and another 50,000
to the north in surrounding provinces and towns).
Despite the large number of death Marseille
recovered quickly from the plague outbreak. The plague spread very rapidly and
over the next three years more than 100,000 people died in Marseille and
surrounding areas. It is estimated that up to 30% of Marseille's population
perished. During a period of two years, 50,000 of the total population of
90,000 of Marseille died. An additional 50,000 people in other areas succumbed
from the plague spread north; Estimates indicate an overall death rate of
between 25%-50% for the population in the larger area, with the city of
Marseille at 40%, the area of Toulon at above 50%, and the area of Aix and
Arles at 25%.
After the plague subsided, attempts to stop the
spread of plague included an act of the parliament of Aix that levied the death
penalty for any communication between Marseille and the rest of. The royal
government strengthened the plague defences of the port, building the
waterside Lazaret d'Arenc. A double line of fifteen-foot
walls ringed the whitewashed compound, pierced on the waterside to permit the
offloading of cargo from lighters. Merchantmen were required to pass inspection
at an island further out in the harbour, where crews and cargoes were examined.
On September 16th, 2012, the anchor of the ship "Grand Saint Antoine"
responsible for bringing the plague to Marseille in 1720 was recovered. It is
quite instructive to revisit the sequence of events and decisions that led to
the outbreak of the Great Plague of Marseille between 1720 and 1723. It comes
to the evidence that although the threat was known and health surveillance
existed with quite effective preventive measures such as quarantine, the
accumulation of small negligence led to one of the worst epidemics in the city
(about 30% of casualties among the inhabitants).
3. First Cholera Pandemic: 1818-1820
The first cholera pandemic (1818–22),
also known as the first Asiatic cholera pandemic or Asiatic
cholera, began near the city of Calcutta and spread throughout
Southeast Asia to the Middle East, eastern Africa and the Mediterranean coast. While cholera had spread across India many times previously, but this
outbreak went further it reached as far as China and the Mediterranean
Sea before subsiding. Hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of
this pandemic, including many British soldiers, which attracted
European attention. This was the first of several cholera pandemics to sweep
through Asia and Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. This first pandemic
had spread over an unprecedented range of territory, affected almost every
country in Asia.
Cholera was endemic to the lower Ganges River.
At festival times, pilgrims frequently contracted the disease there and carried
it back to other parts of India on their returns where it would spread then
subside. The first cholera pandemic started similarly as an outbreak that was
suspected to have begun in 1817 in the town of Jessore. Some
epidemiologists and medical historians have suggested that it spread globally
through a Hindu pilgrimage (the Kumbh Mela) on the upper Ganges
River. Earlier outbreaks of cholera had occurred near Purnia in Bihar,
but scholars think these were independent events. In 1817, cholera began
spreading outside the Ganges delta. By September 1817, the disease had
reached Calcutta on the Bay of Bengal and quickly spread to
the rest of the subcontinent. By 1818 the disease broke out in Bombay, on
the west coast.
Spread beyond India
In March 1820 the disease was identified in Siam,
in May 1820 it had spread as far as Bangkok and Manila, in spring of 1821 it
reached Java Oman, and Anhui in China. In 1822 it was found in Japan, in the
Persian Gulf, in Baghdad, in Syria, and in the Transcaucasia. And in 1823
cholera reached Astrakhan, Zanzibar, and Mauritius. In 1824, transmission of
the disease ended. Some researchers believe that may have been due to the cold
winter of 1823–24, which would have killed the bacteria in the water supplies.
The movement of British Army and Navy personnel is
believed to have contributed to the range of the pandemic. Hindu pilgrims
carried cholera within the subcontinent as had happened many times previously,
but British troops carried it overland to Nepal and Afghanistan. The Navy and
merchant ships carried people with the disease to the shores of the Indian
Ocean, from Africa to Indonesia, and north to China and Japan.
Total deaths
The total deaths from the epidemic remain unknown.
Scholars of particular areas have estimated death tolls. For instance, some
estimated that Bangkok might have suffered 30,000 deaths from the disease. In
Semarang, Java 1,225 people died in eleven days in April 1821.
4. The Spanish Flu: 1918-1920
The Spanish flu, also known as
the 1918-1920 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza
pandemic. Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected
500 million people about a quarter of the world's population at the time. The
death toll is estimated to have been anywhere from 17 million to
50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million, making it one of
the deadliest epidemics in human history. An estimated 500 million
people from the South Seas to the North Pole fell victim to Spanish Flu.
One-fifth of those died, with some indigenous communities pushed to the brink
of extinction. The flu's spread and lethality was enhanced by the cramped
conditions of soldiers and poor wartime nutrition that many people were
experiencing during World War I.
Despite the name Spanish Flu, the disease likely
did not start in Spain. Spain was a neutral nation during the war and did not
enforce strict censorship of its press, which could therefore freely publish
early accounts of the illness. As a result, people falsely believed the illness
was specific to Spain, and the name Spanish Flu stuck. To maintain
morale, World War I censors minimized early reports of illness and
mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United
States. Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral
Spain, such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories
created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit. This gave rise
to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu". Historical and
epidemiological data are inadequate to identify with certainty the pandemics
geographic origin, with varying views as to the origin.
Most influenza outbreaks disproportionately kill the very young and the very old, with a higher survival rate for those in between, but the Spanish flu pandemic resulted in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. Scientists offer several possible explanations for the high mortality rate of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Some analyses have shown the virus to be particularly deadly because it triggers a cytokine storm, which ravages the stronger immune system of young adults. In contrast, a 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene promoted bacterial super infection. This super infection killed most of the victims.
Around the globe
Estimates vary as to the total number who died. An
estimate from 1991 says it killed 25–39 million people. A 2005
estimate put the death toll at probably 50 million (less than 3% of the
global population), and possibly as high as 100 million (more than 5%).
But a reassessment in 2018 estimated the total to be about 17 million,
though this has been contested. With a world population of 1.8 to 1.9
billion, these estimates correspond to between 1 and 6 percent of the
population. This flu killed more people in 24 weeks than HIV/AIDS killed
in 24 years. The Black Death, which lasted much longer, killed a much
higher percentage of the world's then smaller population. The disease killed in
many parts of the world. Some 12-17 million people died in India, about 5%
of the population. The death toll in India's British-ruled districts was
13.88 million. Arnold (2019) estimates at least 12 million dead.
"Patterson and Pyle in their study 'The 1918
Influenza Pandemic' tried to estimate the number of deaths by Spanish influenza
in China as a whole. They argued that between 4.0 and 9.5 million people died
in China, but this total was based purely on the assumption that the death rate
there was 1.0–2.25 per cent in 1918, because China was a poor country similar
to Indonesia and India where the mortality rate was of that order. Clearly
their study was not based on any local Chinese statistical data."
5. Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19): 2019-20
Now we talk on the latest disease or epidemic.
Nowadays a disease is spreading very fast all over the world, which we know as #Coronavirus (Covid-19). Coronavirus has become a
huge problem all over the world; all countries and the people of there are very
upset with this disease. This disease has disturbed not only India, China and
America but also the entire world (mostly USA, China, Italy and Spain)
today the whole world is suffering a lot due to this disease. Many countries
have already declared this disease an epidemic, and they are taking very
important and strong steps to avoid this disease. Common signs of infection
include respiratory symptoms, fever, and cough, shortness of breath and
breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia,
severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.
The number of people worldwide who have been
infected with the corona virus has passed 6 lakh. More than 27,000 people have
died since the outbreak began in December 2019. The vast majority of cases more
than 6 lakh have occurred in USA, China, Italy and Spain, but now whole world
are also dealing with these outbreaks. I am linking here a link
of Worldometers.info, from where you can know what the condition of
this disease in the world is right now.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
So far, some 850 people have been affected by this disease in India and 20 people have lost their lives. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Older people and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
So far, some 850 people have been affected by this disease in India and 20 people have lost their lives. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. Older people and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.
The COVID-19 virus spreads primarily through
droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose when an infected person coughs or
sneezes, so it’s important that you also practice respiratory etiquette (for
example, by coughing into a flexed elbow). At this time, there are no specific
vaccines or treatments for COVID-19. However, there are many on-going clinical
trials evaluating potential treatments. WHO will continue to provide updated
information as soon as clinical findings become available? The COVID-19 virus
affects different people in different ways. COVID-19 is a respiratory disease
and most infected people will develop mild to moderate symptoms and recover
without requiring special treatment. People who have underlying medical
conditions and those over 60 years old have a higher risk of developing severe
disease and death.
Common symptoms include:
1. Fever
2. Tiredness
3. Dry Cough.
Other symptoms include:
1. Shortness of breath
2. Aches and pains
3. Sore throat
4. And, very few people will report diarrhoea, nausea
or a runny nose.
Throughout the world, many people are already
suffering from this disease and many people have given their lives due to this
epidemic. It is a matter of concern that no complete cure (treatment) has been
found so far, now it is to be seen that how many more people get sick from this
disease now and how many more people have to die. It is a matter of concern
that the whole world economy has lost in this epidemic.
In recent decades, the issue of emerging and
re-emerging infectious diseases has become an increasingly important area of
concern in public health. Today, like centuries ago, infectious diseases are
confronting us with the fear of death and have heavily influenced
social behaviors and policy decisions at local, national and
international levels. It is not understood why such diseases spread after every
100 years as an epidemic, and what is the scientific reason behind of
this.
Many more epidemics have spread in history, which
have greatly affected the human race, You can also read about
them, example (Prehistoric epidemic: Circa 3000 B.C., Plague of Athens:
430 B.C., Antoine Plague: A.D. 165-180, Plague of Cyprian: A.D. 250-271,
Plague of Justinian: A.D. 541-542, The Black Death: 1346-1353, Cocoliztli
epidemic: 1545-1548, American Plagues: 16th century, Great Plague of London:
1665-1666, Russian plague: 1770-1772, Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic: 1793,
Flu pandemic: 1889-1890, American polio epidemic: 1916, Asian Flu: 1957-1958,
AIDS pandemic and epidemic: 1981-present day, H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic:
2009-2010, West African Ebola epidemic: 2014-2016, Zika Virus epidemic:
2015-present day and many more.)
With this information, let us conclude this blog. Thanks guys ... and yes if you like this article so Plz like and share this one... See you again, till then #StayHome #StaySafe.
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