A chronology of Pandemics

Page 58, of April 6, 2020 THE NEW YORKER, had a very timely essay, book review entitled The Spread: How Pandemics Shape Human History by Elizabeth Kolbert.  
I am going to summarize and adjust the bigger, better essay from the New Yorker here.
When E. K. discusses the pandemics she numbers them by repeat performance, as with cholera, she numbers the first time it spread, and then three or four successive spreads each get a number.  I am going to reduce it to a number for each 'new' pandemic.
Number one began in Port Said, Egypt in 541, and according to Procopius, contemporary historian, it spread eastward to Palestine and kept going.  He calls it 'pestilence' but we know it as the bubonic plague (#1): fever, lumps under the arms and in the groin, delirium, vomiting blood and coma.  In Constantinople, Procopius estimates it killed 10,000 per day and the Emperor Justinian makes provision for the burial of the corpses.  It reached Rome in 543 and Britain in 544 and lasted off and on until 750.

Number 2 goes to Smallpox, an ancient disease thought to have emerged with the domestication of animals and credited with killing possibly a billion people.  Signs of smallpox have been found on Egyptian mummies from as far back as 1157 B.C.  Joshua S. Loomis describes the history of smallpox in his book EPIDEMICS; THE IMPACT OF GERMS AND THEIR POWER OVER HUMANITY.  He reports that by the fifteenth century, smallpox was endemic throughout Europe and had a kill rate of about 30%, but much higher with children. With each generation there was another outbreak as people whe never got it as children, had families and a new generation without antibodies arose.  Europeans took it to the New World where it became a "virgin soil epidemic" meaning none of the indigenous people had immunity and died in droves.  Smallpox wiped out the people of Hispianola, Puerto Rico, the Aztecs, and no one knows for certain how many other peoples.  The Europeans brought many other diseases with them as well, killing tens of millions of Native Americans in the North American continent.
Frank M. Snowden's book EPIDEMICS AND SOCIETY;  FROM THE BLACK DEATH TOT HE PRESENT, describes the origin of the concept of quarantine, those magical 40 days and 40 nights of biblical lore which were used to try to stop the resurgence of the Black Death via ships, which in the 1300's killed a third of the populaton of Europe.  No one knows why the final epidemic in Marseille in 1720 ended.
But in comes #3 Cholera.  Cholera is a bacterium and began its career in the delta of the Ganges in India, then traveled via colonialism and steamship in the 1800's  to Europe, Russia and finally, to the United States.  Cholera is spread via contaminated food and water and devastated mainly the poorer slums.  As bubonic plague was called the Black Death, cholera was known as the Blue Death because dehydration gave skin an ashen, slate color.  
When authorities attempted to enforce quarantines and 'disinfection' via armed squads, the people rebelled from Naples, Italy to Moscow in Russian and may have propelled the Russian Revolution.  Most recently cholera staged a return in Haiti after the earthquake, allegedly brought there by UN troops brought in from Nepal to keep order.  About ten thousand died.
The other 'Horsemen' of the Apocalypse have been #4 Influenza, #5 polio, #6 measles, #7 typhus.  Although AIDS wasn't mentioned in the article, it would get my #8, and now we have #9 novel coronavirus Covid 19!
A final book mentioned in the essay is RULES OF CONTAGION by Adam Kucharski who points out difference factors such as:  the mode of transmission, the length of time an individual is contagious, the social network that the disease exploits. 
I would stronly suggest that you try to find this issue of The New Yorker, this was a very informative essay!  Also I would like to mention a book I read about the Yellow Fever (a virus spread by mosquito) in Philadelphia BRING OUT YOUR DEAD, J. H. Powell.  There is another one I hadn't read AN AMERICAN PLAGUE, by Jim Murphy.
Movies:  Outbreak, Pandemic, Contagion
By the way, it is important to note the difference between bacteria and virus.  Cholera and Typhus were bacterial, polio and yellow fever and corona are viral.  Alcohol kills virus.  If you have an antibacterial cleaner, check to see if it has alcohol, because alcohol is the magic bullet.

Something to think about as we "shelter in place" during our newest pandemic.
Happy Trails,
Jo Ann
wrightj45@yahoo.com