Even at this time of the advancement of medical science, people have suffered the brunt of an even more devastating epidemic than the way the coronavirus epidemic has shaken the world. The effects of some epidemics have been so severe that they have changed the course of civilization.

Lack of labor due to the loss of life due to the epidemic has led to the extinction of the land slavery system in Europe, the invention of technology has accelerated. Sometimes epidemics play an important role in winning and losing wars.

The ICU of a hospital in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began, was photographed on February 8. It has since become a regular sight in hospital ICUs around the world. From there, the Kovid-19 epidemic spread around the world.

The ICU of a hospital in Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus outbreak began, was photographed on February 8. It has since become a regular sight in hospital ICUs around the world. From there, the Kovid-19 epidemic spread around the world.

The history of epidemics is as ancient as human civilization. Infectious diseases have spread to certain areas at different times, sometimes worldwide. Plague, cholera, tuberculosis, leprosy, influenza, smallpox, various diseases have taken the form of epidemics at different times. Here are some of the epidemics:

430 BC: Plague of Athens

According to LiveScience.com, the disease spread like an epidemic in Athens, the capital of Greece, around 430 BC during the Peloponnesian War. The five-year epidemic killed about a million people. The main symptoms of the disease were fever, extreme thirst, bleeding in the throat and tongue, reddening of the skin and scarring.

The Greek historian Thucydides (480-400 BC) wrote: “Healthy people had a sudden rise in body temperature. The eyes became red and the burning started. The tongue and throat turned red and breathing started. ”

What the epidemic actually was has been the subject of much debate among scientists since then. The names of various diseases including typhoid and Ebola have been mentioned in this discussion. According to many scholars, the Athenians sought refuge in various fortresses known as the "Long Wall" to protect themselves from the onslaught of Sparta's powerful army. And that is what accelerated the epidemic. It is said that the Athenians lost the war to the Spartans because of this epidemic.

541 AD: Justinian Plague

According to CNN, the epidemic began in 541 AD but lasted for almost two centuries. The epidemic killed about 50 million people in the Middle East, Asia and the Mediterranean. This bacterial disease is spread through rats.

An article by John Horgan in the Ancient History Encyclopedia states that the plague first appeared in Egypt in the form of an epidemic. From there the epidemic spread throughout the Byzantine Empire. Later, the plague spread throughout the Mediterranean region. The disease is named after the Roman emperor Justinian. The emperor himself contracted the disease, but later recovered. The famous Haya Sophia church in present-day Istanbul dates back to Justinian's time. During the reign of this emperor, the Byzantine Empire rose to the top. However, the Byzantine Empire lost territory due to the epidemic.

It is said that 10 percent of the world's population died at the time. Many believe that the disease originated in the northeast of China and India. The disease spreads by sea.

A medieval carving from the time of the Black Death. The epidemic in the mid-fourteenth century changed the course of life in Europe. Photo - Reuters

A medieval carving from the time of the Black Death. The epidemic of the mid-fourteenth century changed the face of Europe. Photo - Reuters

1348 AD: The Black Death

Black Death is one of the deadliest epidemics in Europe. According to LiveScience, the plague continues to wreak havoc in Asia and Europe. According to many, the epidemic killed about half of all people in Europe. The dead are buried in mass graves. It was such an epidemic that it changed the economic and overall life structure of the whole of Europe. Art and literature are also affected. The loss of many lives makes it difficult to find workers. The enslavement of Europe came to an end. Surviving workers get better wages, their living standards change. The lack of cheap labor in this push also leads to the innovation of technology.

Ward of a polyclinic in Harare during the 2008 cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe; Photo - Reuters

Ward of a polyclinic in Harare during the 2008 cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe; Photo - Reuters

Cholera epidemic

Cholera has been mentioned in the works of many writers of Bengali literature. This disease has caused village after village to be devastated. Although cholera-like disease was first mentioned in the writings of two Greek physicians on the banks of the Ganges, it first became a global headache in 1818. In that year in Jessore, Bangladesh, the disease started killing people. Within a few days, it spread to most parts of present-day India, Sri Lanka, and Myanmar. Outbreaks appeared to be exacerbated in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines by 1820. One million people died of cholera on the Indonesian island of Java alone. The following year, 17,000 people died in three weeks in Basra, Iraq. The cholera epidemic then spread from East Arabia to the coastal countries of East Africa and the Mediterranean via trade routes.

According to Britannica.com, cholera has disappeared from many parts of the world in the years leading up to the 1817 epidemic.The disease survived in the Bay of Bengal.

In the second phase, cholera appeared in the form of a global epidemic in 1829, causing great deaths in Europe and America. Cholera spread to Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1830, followed by Finland and Poland. It quickly appeared along the trade route in Hamburg, Germany, and for the first time in England in 1831. Cholera spread to Canada and the United States the following year. Epidemics began in 1833 in Mexico and Cuba.

The third epidemic occurred in 1852 and is thought to have killed the most people this year. Starting from India, it spread to Europe, America and the rest of the world through Iran. Africa is the most affected. The highest number of deaths in this period was in 1854, with 23,000 deaths in the United Kingdom alone.

Cholera epidemics started in the fourth and fifth phases in 183 and 181. The severity of the disease is considered to be lower in these two stages than before. Even then, there were widespread casualties in some parts of Europe. In 184 more than 5,000 inhabitants of Naples died, and the following year 80,000 died in the Spanish provinces of Valencia and Murcia. Cholera killed about 200,000 people in Russia in 1893-94. This time, Hamburg, Germany, was hit again, with a cholera epidemic that killed 1.5 percent of the population in 1892. The cholera epidemic spread to China and Japan in the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, with 90,000 deaths recorded between 18 and 189. The disease spread throughout South America in the early 1890s.

Even after that, cholera has spread in two phases and so far it has turned into a global epidemic seven times. The cholera epidemic has killed millions of people in various Asian countries as well as in European and American countries. It takes more than a century and a half to get medical saline and food saline.

According to the World Health Organization in 2016, the disease still kills about 95,000 people each year. The World Health Organization has announced a roadmap to eradicate the disease by 2030.

Between 1918 and 1919, the Spanish flu killed an estimated 50 million people. Photo - Reuters

Between 1918 and 1919, the Spanish flu killed an estimated 50 million people. Photo - Reuters

Spanish flu (1918-1920)

One of the deadliest epidemics in modern history is the Spanish flu, caught in 1918. Where World War I killed 11.6 million people in five years, the Spanish flu killed 20 million people in just two years. According to LiveScience.com, about 500 million people are infected from the South Sea to the North Pole. One-fifth of them died, leaving many indigenous groups on the brink of extinction. The crowding of World War I soldiers and wartime malnutrition exacerbated the disease.

The cause of the Spanish flu was the H1N1 virus. When the Spanish flu became an epidemic, the media in many countries banned the news, but the Spanish media also reported the outbreak. The epidemic became known as the Spanish flu, although its effects were felt throughout Europe and North America.

The first outbreak of Spanish flu occurs in May-June. Mark Honeygsbaum, a researcher at the Welcome Trust at Queen Mary University of London, wrote a book on the epidemic in 1917 called Living with Anga. Mark Honeygsbaum said the news of the influenza first came from an army camp in the United States. That camp was in Kentucky.

Asian Flu (1958-1957)

Another name for influenza in the world is Asian flu. The H2N2 virus spread to the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom within six months of its arrival in China. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Asian flu was first detected in Singapore in February 1958 and in Hong Kong in April. Outbreaks appear to be exacerbated during the summer months in coastal cities across the United States. Asian flu kills about 1.1 million people worldwide. 1 lakh 17 thousand people died in the United States alone. Later it was possible to prevent the epidemic with the vaccine.

The deadly cocoon of prehistoric times was eradicated in 1989 by the spring vaccine.

The deadly cocoon of prehistoric times was eradicated in 1989 by the spring vaccine.

Cocoon spring

Quite a long history of this disease. Spring has been on this earth since prehistoric times. According to the CDC, evidence of cocoon spring has been found in Egyptian mummies three thousand years ago. The earliest written record of a disease that coincides with smallpox is found in China, in the fourth century. Written reports of the disease were also found in India in the seventh century and in Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) in the tenth century. From the 6th to the 18th century, the disease was rampant all over the world.

The CDC says cocooning was a devastating disorder. On average, three out of every 10 victims die. The scars on the bodies of the survivors reminded him of being infected.