John Snow, a local physician, traced the source of the cholera to a public pump where a pail of water had been used to launder a child’s diaper. The third cholera epidemic hit London in 1853.
() Question 5Ī London doctor used a dot map to pioneer the modern science of epidemiology. SCIENCE Death stalks a pump in London, 1854. In 1346, reaching Venice, the plague spread through shipyards and trade routes. Marco Polo’s Silk Road to China transported the bubonic plague via the fleas on humans and rodents. Credit: Ī trade deal with China unleashed one of the deadliest of the great pandemics. Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general took the lead in calling for testing, sex education, and research funds.īurying the plague dead in Tournai, 1349. (New York Historical Society)ĪIDS hit America in 1969. Americans would have to learn not to scorn a population of victims not exactly considered mainstream.ĭ. “We are fighting a disease, not people,” said Surgeon General C. Girls from the village of Salem suffered from tremors and feverish hallucinations. (JSTOR)īrain-swelling Encephalitis lethargica swept Massachusetts during the 1692 season of the notorious witchcraft trials. Some historians blame the hysteria on a viral fever spread by insects and birds.ĭ. In February 1692, in the Massachusetts village of Salem, eight young women accused their neighbors of witchcraft. Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Examination of a Witch, 1853. The party of George Washington, called Federalists, alleged that Thomas Jefferson and the Democrats had conspired with France to infect the capital city, poisoning its public wells. In 1793 a slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) sent yellow fever to Philadelphia with thousands of French refugees. Plague of Justinian Yellow fever hits Philadelphia, 1793. In Philadelphia, as the death toll mounted, Federalists accused Democrats of a biological terror campaign.ĭ. The epidemic helped forge the American two-party system. POLITICS Political rivals Washington and Jefferson. Inspired by COVID-19, in the categories of politics, science, war, literature, and visual arts, we offer 19 pandemic queries. Humanity’s most contagious moments touch off the bizarre and unexpected through the aftershock chain reactions of seemingly unrelated events. Todd Shallat, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of history and urban studies at Boise State University.