Tag: Plague of Athens
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Epidemics: The deadly foes of humanity
There was a time when humans may have solely attributed their illnesses to powers that could turn rivers into blood, kill firstborns, unleash swarms of frogs, lice, flies, and locusts (Exodus 7-10), cause contagious skin diseases (Leviticus 13:2-33), or send hideous, dangerous serpents to kill evildoers (Numbers 21:5-9).1 But in the relatively brief time of…
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Review: The History of the World in 100 Pandemics, Plagues and Epidemics
Arpan BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom The publication of this book could not have been better timed. The book sets out to show how pandemics, epidemics, and infectious diseases have shaped human history over the last 5,000 years. Its contents help us place the current COVID-19 epidemic in its rightful historical context. Famine, war, and pestilence have…
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Ancient Greek plague and coronavirus
Patrick BellBelfast, Northern Ireland Introduction Homer’s Iliad, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War have been termed “the three earliest, and arguably most influential, representations of the plague in Western narrative.”1 This essay uses these historical sources to examine attitudes toward plague in ancient Greece and parallels in the modern response…
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Bugs and people: When epidemics change history
Salvatore MangionePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States In a November 15, 2016 lecture at Oxford University Union, famed British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking predicted that mankind will not last more than a thousand years, and that the only way it can escape extinction is by finding another planet. In May 2017 he moved up the deadline to a…
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Death in ancient times
George DuneaChicago, IL British Medical Journal, Volume 294, 18 April 1987 “Many a physician has slain a king!” the emperor Hadrian shouted aloud as he lay on his deathbed. But Augustus when he was near death gathered his friends to ask if, in the manner of actors, he deserved applause for having played well his…