A history of deadly diseases that changed the fate of the Earth

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

If Pyotr Tchaikovsky had not drunk unboiled water, the grandson of Peter I did not fall ill with smallpox, and Anton Chekhov could have been vaccinated against tuberculosis, the world would have been different. Dangerous diseases almost erased humanity from the globe, and some continue to rage to this day.

Plague was transmitted to people from rat fleas, the Spanish flu from wild birds, smallpox from camels, malaria from mosquitoes, AIDS from chimpanzees … fight them.

There are truly tragic chapters in world history called "pandemics" - global epidemics that hit the population of a huge territory at the same time. Whole villages and islands died out. And no one knows what turns of history would await humanity if all these people - of different classes and cultures - remained to live. Perhaps all the progress of the 20th century is the result of the fact that scientists, writers, artists, doctors and other people who make the world "spin" have finally ceased to perish among others. Today we decided to talk about the seven most deadly diseases that have definitely changed and continue to change the fate of our planet.

Plague

Until recently, the plague was one of the most deadly diseases for mankind. When infected with the bubonic form of plague, a person died in 95% of cases, with pneumonic plague he was doomed with a probability of 98–99%. Three of the world's largest black death epidemics have claimed millions of lives around the world. So, the Justinian plague, which arose in the Eastern Roman Empire in 541 under Emperor Justinian I, swept half the world - the Middle East, Europe and East Asia - and took more than 100 million lives in two centuries. According to eyewitnesses, at the height of the epidemic in 544, up to 5,000 people died in Constantinople every day, the city lost 40% of the population. In Europe, the plague killed up to 25 million people.

The second largest plague pandemic came from China in the mid-14th century and spread like wildfire throughout Asia and Europe, reaching North Africa and Greenland. Medieval medicine could not cope with the black pestilence - in two decades, at least 60 million people died, many regions lost half of the population.

The third plague pandemic, which also originated in China, raged in the 19th century and ended only at the beginning of the 20th - in India alone, it claimed the lives of 6 million people. All these epidemics threw humanity back many years, paralyzing the economy, culture and all development.

The fact that plague is an infectious disease and is transmitted to people from fleas infected by rodents became known only recently. The causative agent of the disease - the plague bacillus - was discovered in 1894. And the first anti-plague drugs were created and tested by Russian scientists at the beginning of the 20th century. The vaccine from the fever-killed plague sticks was first developed and tested by the immunologist Vladimir Khavkin, after which he successfully inoculated the population of India. The first live plague vaccine was created and tested by bacteriologist Magdalena Pokrovskaya in 1934. And in 1947, Soviet doctors were the first in the world to use streptomycin to treat the plague, which helped "revive" even the most hopeless patients during the epidemic in Manchuria. Although the disease was generally defeated, local plague epidemics still periodically break out on the planet: for example, at the beginning of this year, the Black Death "visited" Madagascar, killing more than 50 people. The number of people infected with the plague is about 2,500 annually.

Victims: Roman Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Claudius II, Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomakh, Russian artist Andrei Rublev, Italian painters Andrea del Castagno and Titian Vecellio, French playwright Alexander Hardy and Estonian sculptor Christian Ackerman.

Spanish flu

At the height of the First World War, when people were clearly not up to illness, one of the largest influenza pandemics in the history of mankind broke out - it was called "Spanish flu", since it was in Spain that the first cases of the disease were recorded. For several months in 1918, according to various sources, from 50 to 100 million people died. This is 3-5% of the world's population - twice as many as died during the war itself. It was later found out that the Spanish flu virus H1N1 was transmitted by wild birds. The flu mowed down mostly young and healthy people aged 20–40 years, often from infection to death passed only one day.

Trains, airships, high-speed ships and other miracles of technology contributed to the fact that the disease spread even to the most remote regions of the Earth. From Alaska to South Africa, entire villages were dying out, and in Cape Town there was a case when a train driver registered 6 deaths on a 5 km stretch. The prohibitions on shaking hands, the obligatory wearing of masks could not defeat the disease. The only inhabited place that has not been affected by the pandemic was the Brazilian island of Marajo at the mouth of the Amazon.

Influenza pandemics continue to flare up today. Vaccination is not always effective, since it is impossible to guess which strain of the virus will come next year, and there are more than 2000 types of them. WHO estimates that today all strains of the virus kill 250,000 to 500,000 people each year.

In the painting "Family", the dying artist Egon Schiele depicted three victims of the Spanish woman: himself, his pregnant wife and her unborn child

Victims: In Russia, one of the victims of the Spanish flu was Vera Kholodnaya, a 25-year-old Russian silent film actress. Also, this type of flu claimed the lives of French poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Edmond Rostand, German sociologist Max Weber and Canadian hockey player Joe Hall.

Cholera

This deadly intestinal infection has been known since ancient times, but it caused the most devastating damage to humanity in the 19th and 20th centuries: in the period from 1816 to 1966 there were seven pandemics that claimed the lives of several million people. Until the first quarter of the 19th century, Europeans believed that they had nothing to fear, as epidemics broke out in distant poor countries. However, after the death of 10,000 British soldiers in India, the problem became apparent: in 1817, an Asiatic cholera epidemic spread to the West, and then, for the first time in history, swept through Africa by caravan traders. Cholera became a disaster for Russia as well: between 1865 and 1917, about 2 million people died, cholera riots of soldiers, peasants and townspeople constantly broke out against quarantines, cordons, doctors and officials - the commoners believed that they were being infected deliberately.

In 1883, the cholera vibrio was discovered by Robert Koch, and since then the history of the fight against this disease has begun. The joint development of the researchers gave the result: if in the 1880s more than 3 million people died from cholera annually, today the deaths are 100,000 - 130,000. True, diarrhea (and this is one of the signs of cholera) is one of the ten main causes of death: according to the WHO, in 2012, 1.5 million people died from it.

Evdokia Istomina

Victims: Russian artists Ivanovs died of cholera, Andrei Ivanov died in 1848, and ten years later his son Alexander, author of the painting "The Appearance of Christ to the People". Also, this intestinal infection claimed the lives of the legendary dancer of the St. Petersburg ballet Evdokia Istomina and the famous composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The latter died shortly after visiting an elite restaurant on the corner of Nevsky Prospect, where he was served a glass of unboiled water.

Smallpox

Today it is considered completely defeated. The last case of blackpox (smallpox) infection was recorded in 1977 in Somalia. However, until recently it was a real scourge for humanity: the mortality rate was 40%; in the 20th century alone, the virus killed 300 million to 500 million people. The first epidemic occurred in the 4th century in China, then the population of Korea, Japan and India suffered. Koreans believed in the spirit of smallpox and tried to appease it with food and wine, which they placed on the altar dedicated to the "distinguished guest smallpox." The Indians, on the other hand, represented smallpox in the form of the goddess Mariatale - an extremely irritable woman in red clothes. A rash from smallpox, in their minds, appeared from the anger of this goddess: angry with her father, she tore her necklace and threw the beads in his face - this is how the ulcers characteristic of the disease appeared.

Studying smallpox, people noticed that this disease rarely affects those who deal with cows and horses - milkmaids, grooms, cavalrymen turned out to be more resistant to the disease. Later it was proved that the human smallpox virus is very similar to that of a camel and, as scientists assume, it was camels that were the first sources of infection, and contact with infected artiodactyls gives it some immunity.

Victims: smallpox was a curse for many royals - the ruler of the Incas Vaina Kapak and the ruler of the Acetk Cuitlahuac, the English queen Maria II, the king of France Louis XV, the 17-year-old king of Spain Louis I, who had been in power for only seven months, died from it at different times, 14-year-old grandson of Peter the Great Peter II and three Japanese emperors. It is not known what this world would be like if these kings remained at the thrones.

Tuberculosis

In the 19th century, tuberculosis killed a quarter of Europe's adult population - many in their prime, productive, young and full of plans. In the 20th century, about 100 million people died from tuberculosis worldwide. The type of bacteria that causes the disease was discovered by Robert Koch back in 1882, but humanity still cannot get rid of this disease. According to scientists, a third of the world's population is infected with Koch's bacillus, and a new case of infection occurs every second. According to the WHO, in 2013, 9 million people fell ill with tuberculosis and 1.5 million died from this disease. It is the most deadly of modern infections after AIDS. It is enough for a sick person to sneeze to infect others. At the same time, timely diagnosis and treatment of this disease is very effective: since 2000, doctors have saved more than 40 million human lives.

Victims: consumption interrupted the lives of many famous people, preventing them from completing their plans. Its victims were writers Anton Chekhov, Ilya Ilf, Konstantin Aksakov, Franz Kafka, Emilia Bronte, artists Boris Kustodiev and Vasily Perov, actress Vivien Leigh, and others.

Malaria

How many millions of lives have been claimed by mosquitoes and mosquitoes, it will hardly ever be possible to count. Today it is malaria mosquitoes that are considered the most dangerous animals for humans - much more dangerous than lions, crocodiles, sharks and other predators. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from the bites of small insects. In the overwhelming majority, the future of humanity suffers - children under the age of five.

In 2015 alone, 214 million people fell ill with malaria, 438,000 of whom died. Until 2000, mortality was 60% higher. About 3.2 billion people are constantly at risk of contracting malaria - almost half of humanity. This is mainly the population of African countries south of the Sahara, but there is a possibility of catching malaria in Asia as well, going on vacation. There is no vaccine against malaria, but insecticides and repellents can help keep mosquitoes away. By the way, scientists did not immediately succeed in guessing that it was the mosquito that caused the fever, chills and other signs of the disease. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, several doctors performed experiments at once: they deliberately allowed themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes caught in malaria hospitals. These heroic experiments helped to recognize the enemy by sight and begin to fight with him.

Victims: the legendary Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun died from malaria, as well as Pope Urban VII, the writer Dante, the revolutionary Oliver Cromwell.

Hiv

"Patient Zero" is considered a certain Gaetan Dugas, a Canadian steward who was accused of spreading HIV and AIDS in the 1980s. However, recent studies have shown that the virus was transmitted to humans much earlier: at the beginning of the 20th century, a hunter from the Congo, who butchered the carcass of a sick chimpanzee monkey, contracted it.

Today HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is one of the ten leading causes of death in the world (it ranks eighth after coronary artery disease, stroke, cancer and other lung diseases, diabetes and diarrhea). According to WHO estimates, 39 million people died from HIV and AIDS, the infection claims 1.5 million lives annually. Like tuberculosis, sub-Saharan Africa is the hotbed of HIV. There is no cure for the disease, but thanks to therapy, the infected continue to live almost full life. At the end of 2014, there were approximately 40 million people with HIV worldwide, with 2 million people worldwide acquiring the disease in 2014. In countries affected by HIV and AIDS, the pandemic is hampering economic growth and increasing poverty.

Victims: among the famous victims of AIDS, historian Michel Foucault, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (infected through donated blood during heart surgery), singer Freddie Mercury, actor Rock Hudson, Soviet choreographer Rudolf Nureyev.