Malaria has been known to mankind since ancient times. In the ancient Chinese that have come down to us literary monuments and Egyptian papyri contain descriptions of a disease that, in its manifestations, resembles clinical malaria.
From the group of febrile diseases, it was identified as “swamp fever” by Hippocrates (430 - 377 BC), who first pointed out the connection of this disease with “damp climate” and “unhealthy water”. The Italian Aantzisi (1717), justifying the connection of fever with. poisonous fumes from wetlands, he used the name “malaria” (from the Italian malaaria - bad, spoiled air).
On the territory of Russia, malaria is mentioned in ancient Slavic manuscripts under names reflecting the characteristic clinical manifestations fever, - “icey”, “fire”, “turning yellow”, “plumping”, or such - “shaking”, “chill”, “pale woman”, “fever”.
In the history of malariology significant date dates back to 1640, when Juan DelVego successfully used an infusion of cinchona bark to treat a patient with malaria, and only in 1816 F. I. Giese obtained crystalline quinine from the bark, and in 1820 R. J. Pelletier, J. V. Caventon isolated the quinine alkaloid in pure form.
Brought to Europe by the monks of the Jesuit Order as “Jesuit powder,” quinine rightfully took a leading role in the system of therapeutic and preventive measures for this infection for many hundreds of years.
The causative agent of malaria was discovered in 1880. The honor of discovering the pathogen belongs to the French doctor Laveran, who, while working in Algeria, while examining the blood of a malaria patient, discovered mobile inclusions in red blood cells. He described their morphology in detail and suggested and then proved their animal nature. A year earlier, in 1879, the Russian pathologist V.I. Afanasyev described the pathological picture of sections of the brain of a patient who died from comatose malaria, in which he also found “pigment bodies”, but did not suggest the causative agents of the disease in them.
Later, other types of plasmodia were discovered: the causative agents of three-day and four-day malaria - P. vivax and P. malariae (Golgi C, 1885; Grassi G., Feletti R. 1890), tropical - P. falciparum (H. A. Sakharov, 1889; Marchiafava E. a., Celli A., 1890; Welch W. N, 1897) and P. ovale - the causative agent of ovale malaria (Stephens J. W. R, 1922).
In 1884, V. Ya. Danilevsky discovered the causative agents of avian malaria, thereby creating the necessary laboratory model for the study of Plasmodium.
The systematic position of pathogens was determined in 1887 by I.I. Mechnikov, who classified them as the phylum Protozoa, bringing them closer to coccidia.
In 1891, D. A. Romanovsky developed a method of polychrome staining of malarial plasmodia, laying the foundation laboratory diagnostics malaria and identification of different species.
In 1897, the English military doctor Ronald Ross, who served in India, discovered the carrier of human malaria - Anopheles mosquitoes, and in 1898 - the carrier of avian malaria - Culex mosquitoes. These discoveries were deepened by Italian scientists who deciphered the development of plasmodium in Anopheles mosquitoes (Grassi, Bastianelli, Bignami, 1898).
In 1887, the Austrian physician Wagner von Jauregg proposed and in 1917 put into practice the infection of patients with neurosyphilis with malaria as a method of pyrogenic therapeutic effect.
Subsequently, three scientists - Laveran, Ross and Jauregg were awarded the Nobel Prize for their research in the field of malaria.
Major achievements in the study life cycle The causative agent of malaria and the pathogenesis of infection date back to the 20th century: exoerythrocytic schizogony was discovered (Short H. E., Garnham P. S. et al., 1948); a theory of polytypicity of P. vivax sporozoites was developed (Lysenko A. Ya. et al., 1976); chloroquine was synthesized (Andersag N. et al., 1945), a powerful insecticide, DDT, was discovered (1936 - 1939).
Despite the development of healthcare in the USSR, our country was periodically affected by epidemic outbreaks. The authorities tried to keep silent about cases of mass diseases, which is why we still do not have accurate statistics of epidemic victims.
Flu
For the first time, Soviet Russia faced an influenza epidemic in 1918-1919, when the Spanish flu was raging across the planet. It is considered the most widespread influenza pandemic in human history. By May 1918 alone, about 8 million people (39% of the population) were infected with this virus in Spain.
According to some data, during the period 1918-1919, more than 400 million people were infected with the influenza virus throughout the planet, and about 100 million became victims of the epidemic. IN Soviet Russia 3 million people (3.4% of the population) died from the Spanish flu. Among the most known victims– revolutionary Yakov Sverdlov and military engineer Pyotr Kapitsa.
In 1957 and 1959, the Soviet Union was overwhelmed by two waves of the Asian flu pandemic; the rise in incidence occurred in May 1957, and by the end of the year at least 21 million people were sick with the flu in our country.
The next time the influenza virus hit the Soviet Union was in 1977-78. The pandemic began in our country, which is why it received the name “Russian flu”. The worst thing is that this virus mainly affected young people under the age of 20. In the USSR, statistics on morbidity and mortality from this pandemic were hidden; at least 300 thousand people worldwide became victims of the “Russian flu”.
Meningitis
In our country, meningitis is rightly considered a disease of overcrowding and poor living conditions. The disease, the mortality rate of which is considered one of the highest in the world, always came unexpectedly and disappeared just as suddenly.
Meningitis is still a mystery to epidemiologists. It is known that the pathogen constantly lives “among us.” Every year, from 1 to 10% of Russians are its carriers, but more often than not, without showing itself in any way, it dies under the influence of the body’s immune forces.
The first epidemic of meningitis was recorded in the USSR in the 1930s and 40s. “The incidence of meningitis in those years was colossal,” notes microbiologist Tatyana Chernyshova. “If today doctors are seriously concerned about the number of cases equal to 2.9 people per 100 thousand population, then then this figure was higher - 50 per 100 thousand.”
The epidemic was associated with large migration flows of the country's population, which poured into socialist construction sites; later the disease actively spread in the barracks of the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War and in the barracks of post-war construction sites. However, after the war there was no one particularly sick, and the epidemic subsided.
However, in the 60s, meningitis returned; many doctors who first encountered the disease did not even know its symptoms. Epidemiologists were able to determine the cause of the outbreak only in 1997, when scientists were already seriously studying all varieties of meningococci. It turned out that the cause of the disease was a virus that first appeared in China in the mid-1960s and was accidentally introduced into the USSR.
Plague
In the Soviet Union, the plague was considered a relic of the past, although to a narrow circle specialists knew all the plague epidemics in the USSR. Regions were often the natural focus of the plague Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Transcaucasia.
The first plague epidemic in the USSR is considered to be an outbreak of its pneumonic form in the Primorsky Territory in 1921, which came from China. And then she appeared with alarming regularity:
1939 - Moscow; 1945 – south of the Volga-Ural region, Central Asia; 1946 – Caspian zone, Turkmenistan; 1947–1948 – Astrakhan region, Kazakhstan; 1949 – Turkmenistan; 1970 – Elbrus region; 1972 – Kalmykia; 1975 – Dagestan; 1980 – Caspian zone; 1981 – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan. And this is far from full list plague epidemics in the USSR.
Only after the breakup Soviet Union statistics were revealed. From 1920 to 1989, 3,639 people fell ill with the plague, and 2,060 became victims. But if before the war, each plague outbreak claimed hundreds of lives, then from the mid-40s, when sulfidine and bluing began to be used, the number of victims decreased to several dozen. Since the late 50s, streptomycin began to be used, which reduced the number of deaths to just a few.
If it were not for the dedicated work of epidemiologists, there could have been significantly more victims. The activities of doctors were strictly classified. Employees of the anti-plague service did not have the right to tell even their loved ones about their work, otherwise they would be fired under the article. Specialists often learned about the purpose of a business trip only at the airport.
Over time, a powerful network of anti-plague institutions was created in the country, which operates successfully to this day. Epidemiologists conducted annual observations of natural foci of plague, and special laboratories studied strains isolated from ship rats that sailed on ships from potentially plague-prone countries.
Cholera
Civil war, social upheaval, devastation and famine contributed to the spread of cholera pathogens in the young Soviet state. Nevertheless, Russian doctors managed to extinguish the most serious outbreaks of this disease. Very soon the country's leadership reported that cholera was over in the USSR.
But in the mid-1960s the disease returned again. This was already the seventh cholera pandemic for the planet. Starting in 1961 in Indonesia, the infection quickly spread throughout the world. In the USSR, the first case of El Tor cholera, which came with drug dealers from Afghanistan, was recorded in 1965 in the Uzbek SSR. The authorities sent 9,000 thousand soldiers to guard the quarantine zone. The outbreak seemed to be isolated.
However, in 1970, cholera made itself felt again. On July 11, two students from Central Asia fell ill with cholera in Batumi, from them it began to spread to local population. Doctors believed that the source of infection was located near the seashore, where wastewater was discharged.
On July 27, 1970, the first cases of cholera were recorded in Astrakhan, and on July 29 there were already the first victims of the disease. The situation in Astrakhan began to develop so rapidly that the country's chief sanitary doctor, Pyotr Burgasov, was forced to fly there.
IN Astrakhan region matured that year big harvest melons and tomatoes, however, the movement of barges loaded with products was blocked to prevent the spread of the disease to other regions. Astrakhan bore the brunt of the cholera epidemic. In total, by the end of the year, 1,120 vibrio cholera carriers and 1,270 patients were identified in the Astrakhan region, of which 35 people died.
Large outbreaks of cholera emerged in Nakhichevan, Kherson, and Odessa. By decision of the USSR Council of Ministers, all persons caught up in outbreaks of infection were given paid sick leave. Before leaving the infection zone, they all had to undergo observation and bacteriological examination. For these purposes we used 19 sea vessels, including the flagships - the motor ships "Shota Rustaveli" and "Taras Shevchenko".
7093 liters of cholera vaccine, 2250 kilograms of dry nutrient media, 52,428 liters of liquid culture media, millions of packs of tetracycline and a huge amount of bleach. Through joint efforts, the epidemic was stopped. The exact number of sick and dead Soviet authorities was hidden, but it is known that the number of victims was less than 1% per 100 cases.
AIDS
Until the mid-1980s, the disease of prostitutes, drug addicts and homosexuals was something ephemeral for the USSR. In 1986, the Minister of Health of the RSFSR reported in the Vremya program: “In America, AIDS has been raging since 1981, this western disease. We do not have a base for the spread of this infection, since there is no drug addiction and prostitution in Russia.”
Still as they were. For example, the Medical Newspaper of November 4, 1988 spoke about the presence of several brothels almost in the very center of Ashgabat. And that's just official information. The spread of AIDS in the USSR did not take long to occur. By 1988, more than 30 infected people had been identified in the USSR.
According to the Moscow Scientific and Practical Center for Narcology, the first cases of HIV infection among Soviet citizens could have occurred as a result of unprotected sex with African students back in the late 70s.
In 1988, the first AIDS victim was recorded, however, earlier it was impossible to make accurate diagnoses, since the first HIV screening in the USSR was carried out only in 1987. The first Soviet citizen to become infected with HIV is considered to be a Zaporozhye engineer named Krasichkov.
Blogger Anton Nosik, who personally knew the victim, said that Krasichkov was sent to Tanzania in 1984 for industrial engineering, where he, being a passive homosexual, became infected through sexual contact. Arriving in Moscow in 1985, he “bestowed” another 30 people with this infection.
By the time of the collapse of the USSR, no more than 1000 cases of AIDS were recorded. But later, despite preventive measures and increasing sexual literacy of the population, the number of HIV cases in the CIS countries began to grow steadily.
The Renaissance with its balls and beautiful romantic relationships paints us a utopian picture of a healthy, prosperous society, and the era of revolutions speaks of the genius of an advanced mind. But we forget that in those days communications were not developed like today, there was no sewage system as such, instead of the taps we are accustomed to there were only wells with stagnant water, and lice swarmed in the fluffy hairstyles of women, but this is only the most harmless phenomenon of bygone years. Due to the lack of refrigerators, people had to store food in a room where rats, carriers of deadly diseases, scurried about in hordes, and malaria-carrying mosquitoes swarmed near wells. Damp, poorly heated rooms became the cause of tuberculosis, and unsanitary conditions and dirt became a source of cholera.
Perhaps the word “plague” is in the everyday life of every nation, and everywhere it brings horror. It’s not for nothing that there is even such a proverb: to be afraid of the plague, that is, to be afraid of something in a panic. After all, it’s true that literally 200-400 years ago another epidemic of the disease claimed millions of lives due to the lack of the necessary antibiotic in the doctors’ arsenal. What can I say, to this day there is no antidote for many diseases - you can only delay, but not stop, death human body. It would seem progressive modern medicine should protect humanity from various epidemics, but viruses also adapt to new conditions, mutate, becoming a source of danger to life and health.
Black Death. The plague was the world's first global epidemic, which in 1348 killed almost half the population globe. The disease arose in poor neighborhoods with a concentration of rats and entered the homes of the bourgeoisie. In just two years, the plague killed 50 million people, more than the world wars. It literally devastated entire cities; there was not a single family that was not affected by this infection. People fled from the plague, but there was no escape from it anywhere; instead, the black death captured more and more new states on its way. The disaster was pacified only 3 years later, but its individual, weaker manifestations shook European cities until the end of the 19th century. Poor doctors had to risk their lives to examine patients. In order to somehow protect themselves from infection, they wore uniforms made of coarse fabric, impregnated with wax, and put masks with long beaks on their faces, where aromatic substances with a fetid odor were placed, which helped to avoid infection.
Black Smallpox. Just think, at the beginning XVI century America was inhabited by 100 million people, but terrible epidemics in just a few centuries reduced the number by 10-20 times, leaving 5-10 million survivors on the continent. Indigenous people lived quite happily until New World the countless stream of European migrants did not pour in, bringing with them death in the form of smallpox. Again black and again an epidemic. If the plague killed 50 million people, then smallpox killed 500 million. Only under late XVIII century they found a vaccine against epidemic disease, but it also could not save people from the outbreak in 1967, when over 2 million people died. The disease was so imminent that the Germans couched it in the saying “Love and smallpox escape only a few.” The royals also failed to avoid a sad fate. It is known that they died from smallpox British Queen Maria the Second, Louis the First of Spain and Peter the Second. Mozart, Stalin, Glinka and Gorky managed to survive smallpox. Catherine the Second was the first to ensure that her subjects were vaccinated against the disease.
Spaniard. This name was given to the flu that raged at the beginning of the 20th century. Before people had time to recover from the horrors of the First World War, a new attack struck them. The Spanish flu claimed 20 million lives in just a couple of months, and over the entire period of the epidemic, according to various sources, from 50 to 100 million people. During the course of the illness appearance the person was so modified that he looked like a guest from another world. It is this virus that is associated with the spread of rumors about vampires. The fact is that the rare lucky one who managed to overcome the disease was white as a sheet with black spots on his cheeks, cold limbs and red eyes. People took them for Walking Dead, that's why they spread rumors about vampires. Perhaps the Spanish flu became the worst epidemic in human history.
Malaria. Probably the oldest pandemic, which in different periods covered various countries. Because of the blood-sucking vectors, it was also called swamp fever. Soldiers especially suffered during times of peace and civil wars and builders Panama Canal. This virus is still raging in African countries, several million people die there from malaria every year. It turned out that Pharaoh Tutankhamun died from malaria - this was proven by DNA analysis, as well as medicines found in his tomb.
Tuberculosis. One of the oldest viruses found on earth. It turns out that even after thousands of years, tuberculosis was preserved in Egyptian mummies. In different historical eras the epidemic killed millions of people. Just think - tuberculosis did not subside for 200 years, from 1600 to 1800. Despite modern antibiotics and vaccinations, doctors have not been able to completely protect people from the risk of disease.
Cholera. An entire work, “Love in the Time of Cholera,” by the outstanding Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, is even dedicated to this epidemic. Industrial Revolution led not only to progress, but also to an outbreak of cholera. Dirty Europe was suffocating in the stench, mired in disease, and traders transported the cholera virus to the East, Asia and Africa. Scientists believe that the virus was originally transmitted to humans from monkeys. And the emergence of manufactories, industrial waste and landfills have caused coli in more late time. Besides, she was still missing normal system sewerage and water supply. This scourge dirty cities and countries still puts entire nations at risk of extinction.
AIDS. The sexual revolution of the 1980s led to the spread of one of the worst epidemics on earth - AIDS. Today this disease is called the plague of the 20th century. Promiscuity, drugs and prostitution contributed further more development pandemic. But this virus came from the poverty-stricken cities of Africa, generated by slums and unemployment. Millions of people become victims of the disease every year. To this day, doctors are unsuccessfully struggling to invent a cure or vaccine against AIDS. Due to the fact that a fifth of those infected hide or do not know about their own illness, it is impossible to establish the exact number of people infected with HIV. A striking example The lead singer of the group “Queen”, Freddie Mercury, who died in the prime of his life, completely alone, became a ruined talent due to his own stupidity.
Yellow fever. Africa has always been the most desirable in terms of slave labor and the most dangerous continent due to severe epidemics. Along with the slaves, yellow fever came to America from the “dark continent,” which wiped out entire settlements. Napoleon also tried to establish his colony in North America, but the number of casualties among the soldiers was so great that the French emperor abandoned his idea in horror and sold Louisiana to the Americans. To this day, outbreaks of yellow fever epidemics occur in African countries.
Typhus. It was especially common among the military, which is why the epidemic was given the nickname war or camp fever. This disease decided the outcome of military events, or even the war itself, tilting the balance in one direction or another. Thus, during the siege of the Moorish Granada fortress by Spanish troops in 1489, the pandemic destroyed 17 thousand soldiers out of 25 thousand in just a month. Typhus, which raged for several centuries, did not allow the Moors to be expelled from Spain.
Polio. A terrible epidemic disease that children are especially susceptible to. In the Middle Ages, due to the lack of any normal sanitary and hygienic standards, millions of children died. In the 18th century, the virus matured significantly and began to infect adults. Doctors have never been able to find an effective cure for polio. the only way out to this day is a vaccination.
It turns out interesting - humanity has so many problems, but instead of working together to try to invent means and methods of treatment, biologists are working to create biological weapons on the base existing viruses. Has the bitter experience of past centuries, when entire cities died out, taught us nothing? Why do you need to turn medicine against yourself? Just think, just recently a terrible scandal broke out in America when a cleaning lady found a capsule with a biological weapons virus in a closet at a research institute, which they were going to throw away as unnecessary! But the evil contained in this capsule can destroy most world population! And that's it large quantity countries are trying to increase their own power through the possession of biological weapons. So the recent outbreak of Ebola fever in some African countries is attributed to the hands of biological weapons developers. Although in fact this epidemic has previously affected not only people, but also primates. Today, the number of victims is already in the thousands, and humanity does not have a mass production of medicines and vaccines against pestilence.
But the history of biological weapons goes back to ancient times. Even the ancient Egyptian commander used poisonous snakes to fire pots of them at enemies. IN various wars opponents threw the corpses of people killed by the plague into enemy camps to capture fortresses or, conversely, lift the siege. Terrorists sent letters infected with anthrax to residents of the United States. In 1979, due to a virus leak anthrax 64 people died from the Sverdlovsk laboratory. It is interesting that today's progressive medicine, which works miracles, cannot resist modern epidemics, for example, the bird flu virus. And the more frequent Lately local wars for the redistribution of territories, global processes labor migration, forced relocation, poverty, prostitution, alcoholism and drug addiction aggravate the situation.
It would be interesting to know the readers’ opinions on how omnipotent or helpless people are in the face of terrible epidemics...
When science fiction films or books depict the end of the world, one of its signs is necessarily mass epidemic or pandemic. There have been so many cases in the history of mankind when diseases took millions of lives that people began to believe that the end of the world was really near. Cholera, plague, smallpox, AIDS - unfortunately, it cannot be said that these epidemics are a thing of the distant past and no longer pose a danger. In our review - the deadliest of all epidemics.
The cause of the depopulation of Europeans in the 14th century was the bubonic plague, or “Black Death”. It claimed the lives of about 75 million people, a third of the population of Europe. The plague devastated entire cities. Its carriers were rat fleas and ticks. Doctors had to work at risk own life. They wore special uniforms made of fabric impregnated with wax and masks with long beaks, which contained aromatic substances that supposedly prevented infection and masked the smell of decomposing bodies. Up to the 19th century. this terrible disease practically resistant to treatment.
One of the most dangerous killers in human history was smallpox. In the 8th century. Smallpox killed 30% of Japan's population. This disease led to the depopulation of Northern and South America as a result European colonization and only in the twentieth century. claimed between 300 and 500 million lives. Since 1950, vaccinations against smallpox have begun throughout the world.
A viral disease that continues to kill human lives and in our day, measles. She destroyed the Inca civilization and made it deserted huge territories Central and South America. The total death toll from measles is more than 200 million.
The real scourge of dirty cities and countries is cholera. In the 19th century it claimed 15 million lives. The main vector of the disease was water contaminated with feces. With proper sanitation and disinfection, the disease can be controlled.
Between 1918 and 1920 The H1N1 influenza virus epidemic has swept the entire globe. In just 2 months, the Spanish Flu claimed 20 million lives, and total number deaths - between 50 and 100 million people worldwide. The pandemic was global in nature, even infecting people on islands in the Pacific Ocean.
Malaria has been a direct threat to humans since ancient times - Pharaoh Tutankhamun died from it. Although it is now limited to tropical and subtropical regions of the planet, it was once common in Europe and North America. Every year, between 300 and 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide. The infection is transmitted through mosquito bites.
AIDS is called the plague of the twentieth century
Many of these tragic events were documented by photographers, such as the Spanish Flu outbreak and others
The most terrible epidemics and pandemics in human history
The Renaissance, with its balls and wonderful romantic relationships, paints us a utopian picture of a healthy, prosperous society, and the era of revolutions speaks of the genius of an advanced mind. But we forget that in those days communications were not developed like today, there was no sewage system as such, instead of the taps we are accustomed to there were only wells with stagnant water, and lice swarmed in the fluffy hairstyles of women, but this is only the most harmless phenomenon of bygone years. Due to the lack of refrigerators, people had to store food in a room where rats, carriers of deadly diseases, scurried about in hordes, and malaria-carrying mosquitoes swarmed near wells. Damp, poorly heated rooms became the cause of tuberculosis, and unsanitary conditions and dirt became a source of cholera.
Perhaps the word “plague” is in the everyday life of every nation, and everywhere it brings horror. It’s not for nothing that there is even such a proverb: to be afraid of the plague, that is, to be afraid of something in a panic. After all, it’s true that literally 200-400 years ago another epidemic of the disease claimed millions of lives due to the lack of the necessary antibiotic in the doctors’ arsenal. What can I say, to this day there is no antidote for many diseases - you can only delay, but not stop, the death of the human body. It would seem that progressive modern medicine should protect humanity from various epidemics, but viruses also adapt to new conditions, mutate, becoming a source of danger to life and health.
Black Death. The plague became the world's first global epidemic, which in 1348 killed almost half of the world's population. The disease arose in poor neighborhoods with a concentration of rats and entered the homes of the bourgeoisie. In just two years, the plague killed 50 million people, more than the world wars. It literally devastated entire cities; there was not a single family that was not affected by this infection. People fled from the plague, but there was no escape from it anywhere; instead, the black death captured more and more new states on its way. The disaster was pacified only 3 years later, but its individual, weaker manifestations shook European cities until the end of the 19th century. Poor doctors had to risk their lives to examine patients. In order to somehow protect themselves from infection, they wore uniforms made of coarse fabric, impregnated with wax, and put masks with long beaks on their faces, where aromatic substances with a fetid odor were placed, which helped to avoid infection.
Black Smallpox. Just think, in early XVI centuries, America was inhabited by 100 million people, but terrible epidemics in just a few centuries reduced the number by 10-20 times, leaving 5-10 million survivors on the continent. The indigenous population lived quite happily until a countless stream of European migrants poured into the New World, bringing with them death in the form of smallpox. Again black and again an epidemic. If the plague killed 50 million people, then smallpox killed 500 million. Only at the end of the 18th century was a vaccine found against the epidemic disease, but it could not save people from the outbreak in 1967, when over 2 million people died. The disease was so imminent that the Germans couched it in the saying “Love and smallpox escape only a few.” The royals also failed to avoid a sad fate. It is known that the English Queen Mary the Second, Louis the First of Spain and Peter the Second died of smallpox. Mozart, Stalin, Glinka and Gorky managed to survive smallpox. Catherine the Second was the first to ensure that her subjects were vaccinated against the disease.
Spaniard. This name was given to the flu that raged at the beginning of the 20th century. Before people had time to recover from the horrors of the First World War, a new attack struck them. The Spanish flu claimed 20 million lives in just a couple of months, and over the entire period of the epidemic, according to various sources, from 50 to 100 million people. During the course of the illness, the person’s appearance changed so much that he looked like a guest from another world. It is this virus that is associated with the spread of rumors about vampires. The fact is that the rare lucky one who managed to overcome the disease was white as a sheet with black spots on his cheeks, cold limbs and red eyes. People mistook them for the walking dead, which is why they spread rumors about vampires. Perhaps the Spanish flu became the worst epidemic in human history.
Malaria. Probably the oldest pandemic, which at different times affected different countries. Because of the blood-sucking vectors, it was also called swamp fever. Soldiers especially suffered during the world and civil wars and the builders of the Panama Canal. This virus is still raging in African countries; several million people die there every year from malaria. It turned out that Pharaoh Tutankhamun died from malaria - this was proven by DNA analysis, as well as medicines found in his tomb.
Tuberculosis. One of the oldest viruses found on earth. It turns out that even after thousands of years, tuberculosis was preserved in Egyptian mummies. In different historical eras, the epidemic destroyed millions of people. Just think - tuberculosis did not subside for 200 years, from 1600 to 1800. Despite modern antibiotics and vaccinations, doctors have not been able to completely protect people from the risk of disease.
Cholera. An entire work, “Love in the Time of Cholera,” by the outstanding Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez, is even dedicated to this epidemic. The Industrial Revolution led not only to progress, but also to an outbreak of cholera. Dirty Europe was suffocating in the stench, mired in disease, and traders transported the cholera virus to the East, Asia and Africa. Scientists believe that the virus was originally transmitted to humans from monkeys. And the emergence of factories, industrial waste and landfills became the cause of the emergence of E. coli at a later time. In addition, there was still no normal sewerage and water supply system. This scourge of dirty cities and countries still puts entire nations at risk of extinction.
AIDS. The sexual revolution of the 1980s led to the spread of one of the worst epidemics on earth - AIDS. Today this disease is called the plague of the 20th century. Promiscuity, drugs and prostitution contributed to the spread of the pandemic. But this virus came from the poverty-stricken cities of Africa, generated by slums and unemployment. Millions of people become victims of the disease every year. To this day, doctors are unsuccessfully struggling to invent a cure or vaccine against AIDS. Due to the fact that a fifth of those infected hide or do not know about their own illness, it is impossible to establish the exact number of people infected with HIV. A striking example of a talent lost due to his own stupidity was the lead singer of the group “Queen” Freddie Mercury, who died in the prime of his life, completely alone.
Yellow fever. Africa has always been the most desirable continent in terms of slave labor and the most dangerous continent due to severe epidemics. Along with the slaves, yellow fever came to America from the “dark continent,” which wiped out entire settlements. Napoleon also tried to establish his colony in North America, but the number of casualties among the soldiers was so great that the French emperor abandoned his idea in horror and sold Louisiana to the Americans. To this day, outbreaks of yellow fever epidemics occur in African countries.
Typhus. It was especially common among the military, which is why the epidemic was given the nickname war or camp fever. This disease decided the outcome of military events, or even the war itself, tilting the balance in one direction or another. Thus, during the siege of the Moorish Granada fortress by Spanish troops in 1489, the pandemic destroyed 17 thousand soldiers out of 25 thousand in just a month. Typhus, which raged for several centuries, did not allow the Moors to be expelled from Spain.
Polio. A terrible epidemic disease that children are especially susceptible to. In the Middle Ages, due to the lack of any normal sanitary and hygienic standards, millions of children died. In the 18th century, the virus matured significantly and began to infect adults. Doctors have never been able to find an effective cure for polio; the only solution to this day is vaccination.
It turns out interesting - humanity has so many problems, but instead of working together to try to invent means and treatments, biologists are working on creating biological weapons based on existing viruses. Has the bitter experience of past centuries, when entire cities died out, taught us nothing? Why do you need to turn medicine against yourself? Just think, just recently a terrible scandal broke out in America when a cleaning lady found a capsule with a biological weapons virus in a closet at a research institute, which they were going to throw away as unnecessary! But the evil contained in this capsule is capable of destroying most of the world's population! And an increasing number of countries are trying to increase their own power through the possession of biological weapons. So the recent outbreak of Ebola fever in some African countries is attributed to the hands of biological weapons developers. Although in fact this epidemic has previously affected not only people, but also primates. Today, the number of victims is already in the thousands, and humanity does not have a mass production of medicines and vaccines against pestilence.
But the history of biological weapons goes back to ancient times. Even the ancient Egyptian commander used poisonous snakes to fire pots of them at enemies. In various wars, opponents threw the corpses of people killed by the plague into enemy camps to capture fortresses or, conversely, lift the siege. Terrorists sent letters infected with anthrax to residents of the United States. In 1979, an anthrax virus leak from a Sverdlovsk laboratory killed 64 people. It is interesting that today's progressive medicine, which works miracles, cannot resist modern epidemics, for example, the bird flu virus. And the recent increase in local wars for the redistribution of territories, global processes of labor migration, forced relocation, poverty, prostitution, alcoholism and drug addiction are aggravating the situation.