The History Of Pandemics From Black Death To AIDS

In the 14th century, a pandemic swept the world.

The Black Death originated in Asia and spread to the Mediterranean, killing millions of people across continents. Italy was one of the first countries to be devastated. Sailors who arrived in the port of Venice were separated from society for 40 days, in perhaps the earliest known form of quarantine.

“It’s eerie, the familiarity,” says historian Frank Snowden, as a disease from Asia once again creeps across the world — wreaking particular havoc on Italy.

Of course, the coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, China, is far less deadly than the bubonic plague, which wiped out ⅓ of the Earth’s population. Early estimates put the fatality rate of COVID-19 at 3.4%, possibly much lower.

But Snowden, author of “Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present” and professor emeritus of history and history of medicine at Yale University, says a disease’s fatality rate doesn’t necessarily equate to its importance in society.

And deadly diseases can change history. From the Black Death to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the effects of which are still felt today, pandemics and epidemics shape the societies in which they are incubated and spread.