Pandemics - a recurring theme in history

[QuentinDeakin]

Pandemics – a recurring theme in history

Bubonic plague was (is!) one of those major deadly diseases that had a multi-century cycle of virulence (‘virulence’ being not quite the right word for a bacterial disease). It’s cycle was roughly three centuries. There were major outbreaks in the fourteenth century – the Black Death of the 1350’s – and at the start of the seventeenth, the outbreaks in Spain and southern Europe being even more deadly than that which took hold in London in the 1660’s. Fortunately, like leprosy, it is entirely possible to stop plague in its tracks if the appropriate modern antibiotics are given when symptoms first appear. People still die from bubonic plague in small outbreaks, but it is unlikely to have the same impact should it make a reappearance now. Nevertheless, without wishing to frighten anyone it is over-due and mutations sometimes lead to greater virulence: the Black Death had an extra punch to it, being transmitted by flea bite, sweat and breath. The trouble is the bacteria and the viruses never go away completely. This is because there are so many species that can host them and so many of us in every continent. Flu keeps coming of course and we seem to have learnt enough about vaccines now that a repeat of the ‘Spanish Flu’ of 1918-20 seems unlikely. That one was quite unlike the present Covid, mainly killing those who were in their young adult years and the First World war privation may have played a part in the high mortality rate . There will be new sports of influenza, so constant vigilance is needed. So many die – often many more than in wars, then and now – that pandemics often have major effects on other aspects of society – but that’s another story and one which I would be happy to explore in a short talk. Like war, killer pandemics seem to be always with us. Other members will I hope want to continue this thread. I haven’t said anything specific to Wales for example.