The History of Epidemics. From the Black Plague to COVID-19

Throughout its existence, humanity has been plagued by terrible epidemics… The first mentions of mass diseases affecting humans and animals can be found in the written sources of ancient peoples! For example, modern researchers learned about an outbreak of polio in Ancient Egypt in the 3rd–2nd millennia BC. Yellow fever also has a long history, having decimated white pioneers in tropical Africa for centuries. Plague epidemics or epidemics of smallpox still remain in the collective memory of many nations, just like «cholera barracks» or «Spanish flu»… In the past, such mass diseases were referred to as «death» or «great death». Today, they have the scientific names «epidemic» or «pandemic». A pandemic refers to a disease that has taken on a mass character, affecting a significant portion of the entire population. According to the criteria of the World Health Organization, a pandemic is the spread of a new disease on a global scale. Today, as the wave of coronavirus has swept across the Earth, we want to tell readers about the role of epidemics in the history of humanity.