Epidemics

 

Epidemics have always played an important role in our history. They are disasters, but they are also part of human civilizations. Every epidemic told a story, which was full of sorrow, evil, horror, but also humanity. Through the comparison of the descriptions of epidemics, we can see how the epidemics raged through the human civilization.

We are going to examine and compare the descriptions of epidemics in following six documents: The plague of Athens described in Thucydides’ History of The Peloponnesian War, the bubonic plague in Messina described in the account from Michael Platiensis in The Black Death and the plague in Florence described in Boccaccio’s The Decameron, smallpox among the Cherokee described by James Adair’s History of the American Indians, and smallpox epidemic on the upper Missouri recorded by Francis Chardon. 

First of all we should compare the descriptions of symptoms and signs of the epidemics.  They are different diseases: It is hard to define the epidemic in Athens (more likely to be a plague), but the plague at Messina and Florence can be identified as bubonic plague. Other epidemics which broke out among the Cherokee and Indians in the upper Missouri are identified as smallpox. All of them resulted in high mortally rates and similar symptoms: fever. In Thucydides’ description, the symptoms included “violent heats in the head,” “redness and inflammation in the eyes,” “becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath”. In plague of Messina, the patients had “violent fever” and “vomit[ed] blood.” Yet it is strange that Boccaccio said about the plague in Florence that: “and in most cases without any fever or other attendant malady.” I think this is a mistake or a different showing of bubonic plague. Fever also was reported in the smallpox epidemics among the Cherokee and Missouri. Records of medieval plague show the external characteristic of bubonic plague - buboes. In The Black Death it said: “here not only the ‘burn blisters’ appeared, but there developed gland boils on the groin, the thighs, the arms, or on the neck.” And descriptions of smallpox showed the main characteristic – pox.  

How the epidemic began and spread is also very important when we look into an epidemic event. Because the lack of scientific knowledge and the etiology of both plague and smallpox were not yet found at those times, all these records showed that people blamed the epidemics on god or other races. During the plague of Athens, people thought the plague came because “Peloponnesians had poisoned the reservoirs” and the verse “A Dorian war shall come and with it death” (But Thucydides himself held a skeptical view of this explanation). In the description from The Black Death said that it is the “Genoese” who brought the disease, while Boccaccio blamed that it is “whether disseminated by the influence of the celestial bodies, or sent upon us mortals by God in His just wrath by way of retribution for our iniquities.”  James Adair said the smallpox is brought by “Guinea-men” and old magi blamed the diseased came because “adulterous intercourses of their young married people.” In The Smallpox Epidemic on the Upper Missouri, the Four Bear blamed smallpox on whites. Admittedly, some of these descriptions still showed some probable areas where the epidemics spread from. But most of these assumptions are unscientific and subjective.

Another similarity of these descriptions is that we can see the spread of all these epidemics is very easy, fast and deadly. Thucydides used a word “suddenly” to describe when the plague hit Athens. The Black Death described that people can die even by “touching or using” any of the patients’ things. Boccaccio said the plague spread “without respite” and like “just as fire devours things dry or greasy when they are brought close to it.” In my opinion, this kind of deadly spreading speed may somehow have been exaggerated from the reality because of the fear, but the poor medical care and lack of scientific knowledge can also be the reason cause such rapid spreading speed and infect rates. 

There is a difference between the description of plague epidemics (in Athens, Messina and Florence) and smallpox epidemics (among Charleston Cherokee and Missouri Indian). Descriptions of plague showed that the epidemics can spread to animals. Thucydides said that “birds and beasts” would die if they ate dead people. In Messina “the cats and other domestic animals” could have gotten the plague. Boccaccio described that the “hogs” would die when they “took the [dead men’s] rags between their teeth and tossed them”. The descriptions of smallpox didn’t report death of animals. These descriptions are reliable because it showed the difference between plague and smallpox: plague can spread to animals but smallpox spread to humans only.

As I mentioned before, diseases and epidemics are part of human civilization, it is necessary to observe how the epidemics impacted human society and how human beings responded. The similarity of these epidemics is that they caused huge society chaos and morality problems. People abandoned the burial tradition, families were broken down and people became unafraid of the law and morality. Thucydides described those are “lawless extravagance” among the people. Boccaccio also wrote that “brothers abandoned brothers … and in many cases wives deserted their husbands.” In The Black Death it said: “no ecclesiastic, no son, no father and no relation dared to enter, but they hired servants with high wages to bury the dead.”  In my opinion, these accounts of impact on human society are reliable, since the descriptions of the decline in moral standards are very similar among these different epidemics. 

In these descriptions, people used very ridiculous treatments against the diseases or even felt helpless because the lack of medical knowledge. For example, in The Black Death it writes: “there being no means of healing it.” In History of the American Indians, James Adair wrote, they “applied a regimen of hot and cold things”, “ordered the reputed sinners to lie out of doors, day and night, with their breast frequently open to the night dews, to cool the fever” and “sweat[ed] their patients, and plunge[d] them into the river”. The Indian also applied “herbs and plants”. 

But a very important difference is described in Mississippi Valley Historical Review: “Indian vaccinated his child, by cutting two small pieces of flesh out of her arms, and two on the belly - and then taking a scab from one… three days after, it took effect, and the child is perfectly well.” From this we see the Indian began to learn inoculation of smallpox.

In general, these descriptions about epidemics showed the how people faced the epidemics. They are valuable documents to let us know how the spread of epidemics impacted human society. We can also see how humans developed their reaction to epidemics.