Las grandes epidemias que han azotado a la humanidad a lo largo de su historia.

Abstract

Several pandemics and many epidemics have occurred in the history of the planet; most of them have been of zoonotic character (transmitted by animals, insects or derived from animals), which have had repercussions and deviated the course of the history of mankind. Man has always prevailed in the face of the most lethal of epidemics. The ancient world was hit by diseases that spread rapidly with epidemic or pandemic character, producing great mortality. These epidemics were known by the generic name of plagues. It is in the Bible where the first mentions of plague are found. In the Old Testament there are clear allusions to them and in the book Exodus (9,5) we can read: "The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: take handfuls of furnace ashes and scatter them towards the sky and they will turn into small dust in all the land of Egypt, from which there will be tumors in both man and beasts". Before Hippocrates laid the foundations of medical science, epidemics were considered like an effect of divine anger, an opinion supported by the interpretation of the Holy Books (Exodus, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Book of Kings, Matthew) and by profane texts of ancient philosophers and thinkers (Plato, Ovid, Plutarch, Titus Livy and Pliny). However, Hippocrates considered that the plague was favored in the warm and humid seasons. In the third book of his Hippocráticum Corpus (Book of Epidemics), he states that the state of the air and seasonal changes engendered the plague of Athens in 428 BC. The plagues that devastated the world of which we have news were among others the following: the plague of Tebas, the plague of Perinto, the plague of Athens, the plague of Agrigento, the plague of Syracuse, the plague Julia, the plague of Rome or of Antoninus or Marcus Aurelius, the plague of Cómodo, the plague of Greece, the plague of Justinian, the Black plague, the plague of Leprosy, the plague of Syphilis, the plague of Smallpox, the plague of Rabies, the plague of Cholera, the Yellow plague or Black Vomiting, the plague of Spain or Spanish flu, the plague of Ebola, the plague of Lassa, the plague of Tuberculosis, the plague of Malaria, the plague of Marburg, the plague of SIDA. We are struggling with the COVID 19 pandemic in its Ómicron variety and far from having won the battle against the new pathogenic microorganisms, we continue to lose the battle to eradicate them; we have not defeated AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are resurging and the diseases of Ebola, Lassa, Marburg and Malaria are just threatening to return. This study will demonstrate the tragic history of universal epidemiology and everything we can learn from it to face current epidemics and prepare to face or prevent future ones.