8 most massive and deadly epidemics in history
The history of mankind has several dozen epidemics, which were compared by eyewitnesses and historians with the end of the world. The most terrible infections claimed the lives of millions of people, destroyed entire nations. What are these terrifying diseases? Did you manage to find a cure - or are we still powerless in front of nature?
Bubonic plague
A terrible disease that killed in the XIV century 75 million people - a third of the population of Europe. The infection was carried by fleas that bit an infected rat. The symptoms of the disease are so terrible - a black face, swollen lymph nodes, the smell of rotting flesh emanating from the patient - that the bubonic plague received the telling name "black death". Doctors at that time treated patients with a threat to their own lives - the only protection against infection spread by airborne droplets was a suit of dense black fabric with a mask resembling a bird's head: vinegar and aromatic oils were poured into the hole in the "beak", disinfecting the air … The most successful method of treating bubonic plague was considered to be the burning of an open wound with a red-hot poker (the bacteria died at 100 ° C), but, as a rule, the tricks of the healers were in vain. Medical treatment of the disease appeared only in the 19th century, together with the discovery of antibacterial drugs.
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Smallpox
A dangerous and highly contagious disease that became the cause of the depopulation of the Americas in the 20th century, took about half a billion lives. The first signs of smallpox lesions (from papules and pustules, with smallpox filled with blood) in the form of marks were found as early as 4 thousand years BC - in mummies in Egyptian tombs. A distinctive feature of a person in the XVI-XVIII centuries was the characteristic “does not have smallpox signs”. In those years, the epidemic claimed 1.5 million lives out of 12 million cases, and the survivors left deep scars on their skin in memory of the disease. The first vaccine against smallpox was invented by the village doctor Edward Jenner, infecting the boy with a weaker vaccinia virus, and 4 months later with smallpox. The child recovered, and this case was the beginning of a mass vaccination, which ultimately led to a complete victory over the disease.
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Cholera
The scourge of dirty cities with unsanitary living conditions, cholera claimed about 15 million lives in the 19th century. The causative agent, Vibrio cholerae, causes an acute infectious inflammation of the intestines, which, due to profuse diarrhea, leads to deep dehydration of the body. The main source of infection was drinking water contaminated with feces, and this was facilitated by the crowding of the population in large cities and the lack of compliance by residents with basic hygiene rules. It is known that it was cholera that caused the death of the outstanding Russian composers V. A. Glinka and P. I. Tchaikovsky.
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Malaria
A fatal disease known since the time of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The carrier of the infection is the Anopheles mosquito, which lives in the tropical and subtropical regions of the planet. About half a million people worldwide fall ill with malaria every year, but, unfortunately, no drug is capable of providing a 100% recovery, although a vaccine is being actively developed and new drugs are being sought.
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Spanish flu
The Spanish flu, or "Spanish flu", led to the most massive pandemic, notorious for the almost absolute ratio of cases to death. In 1918, almost 40% of the Spanish population was infected with a deadly virus, after which the disease spread with lightning speed throughout the planet. It is known that in the first 25 weeks, the flu, a characteristic feature of which was intrapulmonary bleeding (from which the patient died, choking on his blood), destroyed more than 25 million people. The disease raged for only 18 months, but the number of victims of the “Spanish flu” during this time exceeded the number of those killed in the first and second world wars combined. Scientists are still arguing about what exactly the Spanish flu virus was and whether it was really a flu virus.
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Measles
This acute viral illness, characterized by fever, rash, coughing and hydrophobia, remains the leading cause of death in children today. According to WHO, the death toll from measles in children under 5 years of age in 2011 was 158 thousand people. Drugs for specific treatment of the disease do not yet exist, but the vaccine created in 1966 reduces the incidence of measles to a minimum. According to doctors, mass vaccination of children by 2020 will completely eliminate the disease in Russia.
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Tuberculosis (consumption)
The disease is caused by Koch's sticks. They, according to some sources, infected about a third of the world's population. According to doctors, every 1-2 seconds a new infection occurs. Tuberculosis is considered a disease of the urban poor, a social disease, since it mainly affects people from low-income segments of the population living in unfavorable conditions, although cases of infection of quite well-off people are not uncommon. Until the 20th century, in which tuberculosis claimed the lives of more than 100 million people, the disease was considered incurable, but modern medicine successfully cures the disease in the early stages of its development. The main preventive measure is BCG vaccination, which is carried out in the absence of contraindications in the first week of infants' life.
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AIDS
This relatively young, sluggish disease of the immune system, causing a critical decrease in the patient's immunity, has become a real scourge of our time. Since the beginning of the epidemic, the AIDS virus has killed more than 20 million people. It is characteristic that people infected with HIV do not die from the virus as such, but from diseases that have arisen against the background of a critical decrease in the body's defenses (tuberculosis, pneumonia, toxoplasmosis, etc.). A cure for AIDS has not yet been invented - the likelihood of infection can only be reduced through preventive measures. Since the virus is transmitted by contact with body fluids, it is recommended to practice protected sexual intercourse, not to take other people's razors, machines, manicure supplies, and also use disposable syringes when injecting.
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Maria Kulkes Medical journalist About the author
Education: First Moscow State Medical University named after I. M. Sechenov, specialty "General Medicine".
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