Abstract
One of the most devastating environmental consequences of war is the disruption of peacetime human–microbe relationships, leading to outbreaks of infectious diseases. Indirectly, conflicts also have severe health consequences due to population displacements, with a heightened risk of disease transmission. While previous research suggests that conflicts may have accentuated historical epidemics, this relationship has never been quantified. Here, we use annually resolved data to probe the link between climate, human behavior (i.e. conflicts), and the spread of plague epidemics in pre-industrial Europe (AD 1347–1840). We find that AD 1450–1670 was a particularly violent period of Europe’s history, characterized by a mean twofold increase in conflicts. This period was concurrent with steep upsurges in plague outbreaks. Cooler climate conditions during the Little Ice Age further weakened afflicted groups, making European populations less resistant to pathogens, through malnutrition and deteriorating living/sanitary conditions. Our analysis demonstrates that warfare provided a backdrop for significant microbial opportunity in pre-industrial Europe.
Highlights
Historians, scientists, and wider society have generally paid little attention to bygone epidemics, with the marked exceptions of the Black Death and the Great Plague of London (Duffy, 1977)
Understanding why, when, and how past epidemics/pandemics spread is key to contextualizing current outbreaks
The most infamous plague outbreak in human history was the second plague pandemic (AD 1346–1720 for western Europe; ending around AD 1840 in Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Near East; Dols, 1979; Hays, 2005), which started with the Black Death (AD 1346–1353)
Summary
Historians, scientists, and wider society have generally paid little attention to bygone epidemics, with the marked exceptions of the Black Death and the Great Plague of London (Duffy, 1977). This narrow outlook has recently changed due to the coronavirus pandemic and its profound impacts on human health, the global economy and the geography of travel. The ongoing Covid-19 crisis has sparked renewed interest in Albert Camus’ novel “The plague”, originally published in 1947. The fascist “plague” that inspired the novel may no longer be a reality, but many other varieties of “pestilence” mean that this theme still has relevance today (Franco-Paredes, 2020). Understanding why, when, and how past epidemics/pandemics spread is key to contextualizing current outbreaks
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