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One of the favorite questions of historians is, “What would have happened if …” What would have happened if Hitler’s father had not been illegitimate and his relatives had not died as children? What would have happened if Napoleon had recovered at the Battle of Waterloo? However, scientists and historians agree that pandemics, epidemics, and disease in general have corrected human history for centuries.
By the way, humanity has never experienced greater fear than the raging “black death”, the plague that claimed up to a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century. Italy has been a role model for other countries in the fight against rapidly spreading infectious diseases since the Middle Ages, the discoverers of the ‘closed’ urban method, the pioneers of ‘statistical thinking’ who counted their deaths and analyzed the figures. to determine if the disease is short-lived or has the potential to become a severe epidemic or even a pandemic.
In the 1400s, the first law was passed in Basel, Germany (then this Swiss border town belonged to Germany) to combat rapidly spreading infectious diseases. In the 15th century, plague patients in Germany were forbidden to have contact with other people and, in certain phases, healthy people were forbidden to attend churches, markets and festivals. By the way, these “antiquated” means of struggle, such as the isolation of cities, regions or entire countries, as history has shown, are not only adequate, but above all correct.
These “old-fashioned” means of struggle, such as the isolation of cities, regions or entire countries, as history has shown, are not only appropriate but, above all, correct.
Karl-Heinz Leven, a German medical historian, notes that today’s measures to combat the coronavirus are practically no different from those in early human history: the closure of countries, the isolation. It is true that the scientist hopes that the closure will not continue to be the main effective tool in the fight against the virus; the latest technologies, vaccines and other tools still offer much hope.
Syphilis, plague, gout, cholera, smallpox: once left untreated in their time, these and other diseases have relentlessly killed mankind. Some of them have been irreversibly eradicated, some of them are still close to us, like cholera, which spread to Peru in 1991, killing about 12,000 people in South America at that time and causing up to 700,000 people in Yemen in 2017. ..
And although everyone’s eyes today are focused only on the coronavirus, let’s say, a disease like cholera is still an infection that poses a serious threat to public health. The WHO (World Health Organization) has set itself the goal of fully controlling the infection by 2030 if, as the organization warns, humanity itself can control global warming, increasing urban population density and population growth, that provide excellent conditions for the infection to survive. and spread.
2020 is the year of the coronavirus, 1920 will go down in history as the year of the Spanish flu, cholera devastated humanity in the 1820s, and in the 1720s people were overwhelmed by the ‘black death’, the plague.
How are these pandemics different or perhaps comparable?
Interestingly, for example, the church and, of course, the economy at the time were the most outraged by the quarantine introduced during the plague. And do you still remember how the Lithuanian church, which still has significant influence in our country, reacted during the first wave of coronavirus?
By the way, all these pandemics have one thing in common: they are accompanied not only by rumors, but above all, by conspiracy theories. First of all, humanity’s biggest mistake in all pandemics is to deny the disease, downplay it, or more generally to close our eyes. German medical historian Volker Roelcke says that in, say, the United States, authorities generally ignored the disease when the Spanish flu started. US authorities began responding to the disease about a month or two after it began, but even that did not stop the United States from sending its troops to Europe.
2020 is the year of the coronavirus, 1920 will go down in history as the year of the Spanish flu, cholera devastated humanity in the 1820s and in the 1720s people were devastated by the “black death”: the plague .
By the way, “social distancing” was already used in some places during the Spanish flu, for example, in St. Louis, United States, schools were closed and isolated. This, of course, has affected far fewer infected and sick people than, say, in public states like Philadelphia, where public parades were allowed even when the disease broke out.
The Spanish flu claimed the lives of up to 50 million people (scientists predicted as many as 100 million), claiming more victims than World War I, which killed 17 million people (by the way, the world’s population at that time was 1.8 billion people). .
Is “One Hundred Years of Pandemic Theory” the same conspiracy theory as the others?
On the Internet you can find various theories to explain coincidences, clairvoyance and prophecies that “confirm” the theories that the great pandemic punishes humanity every hundred years. German scholars point out that this, like other conspiracy theories, “only almost” corresponds to reality: some diseases and infections are “stretched” at the rate of the century, most of them are silenced or not mentioned at all, of such a deliberate way to form the rhythm of “every hundred years”.
Medical historian Leuven points out the deliberate omission of some of the epidemics (or even pandemics) that existed among the major known pandemics, such as the Asian flu, tuberculosis, or smallpox, just to make the theory more “attractive.”
Although the first cholera pandemic lovingly dates back to 1820, the WHO announces its beginning in 1817, the Spanish flu has spread since 1918 and, it must be remembered that the coronavirus began as early as 2019. According to Leven, this “Pandemic rhythm of the century”, which is eagerly pursued by conspirators of all types of hair, is not only inaccurate, but completely false, the data or facts are chosen completely randomly and without any scientific basis.
Cholera is a modern disease designed to eradicate the poor
After 1815, rapid industrialization began in much of Europe: insignificant cities became centers of industry, factories were established, and the age of mobility began. More and more people are seeking work in cities, and the population, which began to grow steadily in the mid-18th century, is growing at an ever-increasing rate in the 19th century.
However, cities can no longer grow as fast as their populations, and more and more people are living in overcrowded conditions, where water supply conditions have been particularly poor, not to mention even more precarious hygiene conditions: cholera is coming to Europe.
It is true that cholera existed before it reached Europe; in some parts of Asia, people had cholera until the 19th century, but it is not clear whether it had reached Europe before then. From about 1830 onwards, doctors came together to talk about an entirely new and rapidly spreading dangerous disease.
Indeed, few infections seem to have caused as much disgust in people as cholera, especially in a time when any bodily function was taboo. Uncontrolled diarrhea, in which a person lost a liter or more of fluids at a time, caused a terrible feeling of shame and disgust, and doctors were forced to describe the main symptom of winged cholera as “water-like diarrhea. cook rice “. Meanwhile, people infected with cholera could start having diarrhea anywhere: during worship, sitting in a carriage, or simply on the street.
Few infections have caused the displeasure of people with patients like cholera.
Epidemiologists count a total of seven cholera pandemics that broke out in the 19th and 20th centuries, on various continents. By the way, WHO notes that the seventh cholera pandemic, which began in 1961, continues to this day …
In the 1830s, Tsarist Moscow was the first European city to begin the spread of cholera. The interesting thing is that, like any pandemic, this one did not happen without conspiracy theories. With the spread of cholera, rumors spread that the rulers, along with the rich, invented cholera to eradicate the rapidly growing population of the poor by poisoning them. These conspiracy theories were “confirmed” in the eyes of the poor by the fact that the sick were forcibly locked up in hospitals when cholera reached the then capital, St. Petersburg, in June 1831.
By the way, cholera escaped not only to the poor, but also to prominent politicians or the rich. American President James Knox Polk also died of cholera, and composer Peter Tchaikovsky is also believed to have died after drinking an unboiled glass of water in a St. Petersburg restaurant in October 1893.
However, an interesting fact is that the deceased kissed himself on the lips in the open coffin, according to the customs of the time, according to the customs of the time; this would have been possible only if the risk of disease had been particularly low. For this reason, the death of the 53-year-old composer is accompanied by another version that, together with the fateful glass of unboiled water, he allegedly drank as much arsenic as he committed suicide. He was sued for his homosexuality and was pushed by members of the Court of Honor of the St. Petersburg Law School, where he once studied.
If someone in Switzerland invites you a guest and offers you cholera, don’t be afraid, the hospitable hosts will make you a vegetable cake.
Did you know that cholera is edible?
If someone in Switzerland invites you a guest and offers you cholera, don’t be afraid, the hospitable hosts will make you a vegetable cake. This cake is baked with puff pastry and filled with leeks, potatoes, cheese and apples, and in some regions it is also seasoned with onions, pears, bacon, bacon or other vegetables.
Exactly where the name of this dish comes from, the Swiss do not entirely agree. One version claims that this dish originated in the Swiss canton of Valais, when, around the 1830s, when cholera raged, people in the canton did not leave home due to the threat of contagion and cooked what they thought.
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