Epidemics and Fear

Abstract

For centuries, the plague caused fear and panic. The term “bubonic plague” relates to ulcerated lymph nodes (the buboes) observed in the groin, armpit, or neck of the infected person. The plague was transmitted from rodent to rodent—and to humans—by fleas. Today, bubonic plague is treatable if diagnosed early, but the pulmonary (pneumonic) form of the infection still carries a very high risk of mortality (1). Between 1347 and 1350, the plague, then known as the Black Death, killed more than 25% of Europe's population (2, 3). Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron is based on stories of people who fled from plague-infested Florence. In the 18th century, after a massive population shift to towns during the Industrial Revolution, squalid conditions in overcrowded cities became the breeding ground for epidemics. Cholera emerged on the Indian subcontinent at the beginning of the 19th century. In its second pandemic (1829–1852), 7000 people died in London amid mass panic. Cholera appeared in New York in 1832 and in South America in 1834. …