In 2014, I wrote a blog post
about Ireland’s ringforts. Some scholars believe that these ancient sites may
owe their origin to changes in the environment.
It is possible that periods of poor weather may have led to poor
harvests, shortages of food, famine, lowering of resistance to disease and
vulnerability to widespread pestilences. When I wrote this piece, little did I
think that the world would face, in just a few short years, its greatest
pandemic in a century known as coronavirus or Covid19.
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| Justinian Plague |
Justinian Plague - 541 AD
The first historic plague (the
Justinian, named after the emperor who was infected by it) was an outbreak of
bubonic plague, which came to Ireland in AD 544 and decimated the people over
several years. Several other pestilences are recorded from the mid-500s.
Another severe outbreak of plague hit Ireland in 664. These may have played a
part in the sudden desire of those who survived and could afford to do so, to
secure themselves in ringforts. (Lynne,
C., Archaeology Ireland, Winter 2005). Experience of the first plague may have
shown that small isolated communities had a better chance of avoiding
infection.
Further outbreaks over the next
two centuries eventually killed about 50 million people, 26 percent of the
world population. It is believed to be the first significant appearance of
the bubonic plague. Plague and pestilence, of course, have been part of
the human experience going back to pre-historic times. Malaria, tuberculosis,
leprosy, influenza, smallpox and others first appeared 10,000
years ago during the hunter-gatherer period. As our ancestors built cities,
forged trade routes and waged war, pandemics became more common. The website www.history.com is a good source of information on the history of plagues.
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| The Black Death |
Black Death
The Black Death, also known
as the Pestilence, Great Bubonic Plague, the Great
Plague or the Plague, or less commonly the Great
Mortality or the Black Plague, was the most
devastating pandemic recorded in human history. This pandemic
resulted in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people
in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351. The bacterium Yersinia
pestis, is believed to have been the cause.
The plague appeared in Europe in
October 1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea berthed at the Sicilian port of
Messina. Most sailors aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were
gravely ill. Healthy people did all they could to avoid the sick. Doctors
refused to see patients; priests refused to administer last rites; and
shopkeepers closed their stores.
In 1348, soon after the plague
arrived in cities like Venice and Milan, city officials put emergency public
health measures in place that foreshadowed today’s best practices of social
distancing and disinfecting surfaces. The Black Death epidemic had come to an
end by the early 1350s, but the plague reappeared every few generations for
centuries. Modern sanitation and public-health practices have greatly
diminished the impact of the disease but have not eliminated it. Although
antibiotics are available to treat the Black Death, according to The World
Health Organization, there are still 1,000 to 3,000 cases of plague every year.
Significance of a 40-Day 'Quarantino'
The English word “quarantine” is
a direct descendent of quarantino, the Italian word for a 40-day
period. Health officials may have prescribed a 40-day quarantine because the
number had great symbolic and religious significance to medieval Christians.
By the early 1500s, England
enacted the first laws to separate and isolate the sick. Homes stricken by
plague were marked with a bale of hay strung to a pole outside. If you had
infected family members, you had to carry a white pole when you went out in
public.
The Great Plague of London -1665
In 1665, another devastating outbreak
of the bubonic plague led to the deaths of 20 percent of London’s population.
As human death tolls mounted and mass graves appeared, hundreds of thousands of
cats and dogs were slaughtered as the possible cause and the disease spread
through ports along the Thames. The Great Plague was the last and one of the
worst of the centuries-long outbreaks, killing 100,000 Londoners in just seven
months.
Spanish Flu - 1918
The avian-borne Spanish flu was a
deadly influenza pandemic lasting from January 1918 to December 1920 which resulted
in 50 – 100 million deaths worldwide. It
was first observed in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia, before
quickly spreading around the world. At the time, there were no effective drugs
or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain.
Asian flu -1957
Starting in Hong Kong in 1957 and
spreading throughout China and then into the United States, the Asian flu
became widespread in England where, over six months, 14,000 people died. A
second wave followed in early 1958, causing an estimated total of about
1.1 million deaths globally. A vaccine was developed, effectively containing
the pandemic.
HIV/AIDS - 1981
First identified in 1981, AIDS
destroys a person’s immune system, resulting in eventual death by diseases that
the body would usually fight off. AIDS was first observed in American gay
communities but is believed to have developed from a chimpanzee virus from West
Africa in the 1920s. Treatments have been developed to slow the progress of the
disease, but 35 million people worldwide have died of AIDS since its discovery,
and a cure is yet to be found.
SARS - 2003
In 2003, after several months of
cases, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is believed to have started
with bats, spread to cats and then to humans in China, followed by 26 other
countries. The disease infected 8,096 people and resulted in 774 deaths. Quarantine
efforts proved effective and by July, the virus was contained and hasn’t
reappeared since.
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| Coronavirus - COVID-19 |
COVID-19 - 2019
On March 11, 2020, the World
Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 virus was officially a pandemic
after spreading to 114 countries in three months. By the end of March, over
823,566 people had been infected and the global death toll reached 40,643. In
Britain, the total number of deaths reached 1,789. COVID-19 is caused by a
novel coronavirus, the family of viruses that includes the common flu and SARS.
Symptoms include respiratory problems, fever and cough, and can lead to
pneumonia and death.
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