Geography of Epidemics

Geography of Epidemics Activity Inquiry Question How do epidemics impact societies? After learning about the notable past epidemics discussed in the readings, compare the examples to describe how these epidemics impacted societies. Give reasons for the extent of each epidemic's impact. Clarifying Questions What are the four epidemics discussed in the essays, their time periods, and their locations? Who did each epidemic impact? Vocabulary epidemic: a widespread, sudden, and rapid outbreak of a contagious disease where that disease is normally not present or occurs only occasionally. pandemic: an epidemic that has spread across several countries, affecting a large number of people. xenophobia: fear and dislike of people from other countries. Black Death: a 14th-century plague that killed up to a third of the European population and changed economic and demographic conditions. smallpox: first introduced to the Americas by European colonizers, smallpox is an extremely contagious virus that either kills those who are infected or leaves them horribly scarred. Ebola: a virus that causes flu-like symptoms and can lead to severe bleeding, organ failure, and death. It has occurred sporadically in various parts of Africa since 1976. COVID-19: a respiratory virus discovered in China in 2019. The highly contagious virus spread around the world, quickly turning into a pandemic that had not only health, but social and economic impacts as well. Background Information Epidemics and pandemics have had major impacts on populations throughout history. Some of the best known include the Black Death—an outbreak of bubonic plague that struck Europe in the 14th century—and the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 (sometimes called the "Spanish flu") that is believed to have caused as many as 75 million deaths worldwide during and after World War I. Epidemics are usually defined by comparing death rates during disease outbreaks to normal, long-term death rates. Medical or health geographers study the spread of disease, social response to disease, and the demographic, social, and economic effects of diseases on populations. In looking at the effects of an epidemic, they examine: Globalization and ease of disease transmission International aid cooperation and response The politics and ethics of closing borders to avoid the spread of disease Research by medical geographers has helped lower the transmission of disease, find the causes of disease, and even explain certain historical events. Source Reference Author: Brian Bossak, associate professor of public health Description: This reference article examines how the Black Death spread and how it affected Europe's population and society. Context and Things to Consider Think about how the Black Death spread. Consider the immediate impacts of the Black Death on Europe's population numbers. Also look at the different ways people reacted to the spread of the disease. Consider the long-term impacts of the Black Death on religion, trade, science, and geographic boundaries. Geography and the Black Death Exactly where the medieval disease that we call the "Black Death" started, no one knows for sure. However, historical accounts suggest that the disease likely began in ancient civilizations of central-eastern Asia, and spread westward during the 1340s, eventually entering Europe in late 1346. Within five years, by the time the first wave of the disease had passed through Western Europe, it is estimated that as much as 60% of Europe's population had died. Origin and Spread of the Black Death After the development of the Silk Road trading route, Italian merchants (particularly those from Genoa) and other traders established a fortress and market area on the Crimean Peninsula bordering the Black Sea. The settlement was called Caffa. Caffa, and other trading settlements along the Black Sea, were located at the intersection of eastern and western civilizations. For many years, both civilizations participated in trading and merchant activities. However, in 1346, the Golden Horde of the Mongol Empire, under the leadership of Janibeg, attacked the fortress at Caffa again after several previous attempts to take control of the trading outpost. Around the same time, Janibeg's troops began to fall ill and die of the disease that would later be termed "the Black Death." In a desperate move, as his army began to collapse from illness, Janibeg ordered that bodies of those who had died from the disease be catapulted over the fortress walls and into the center of Caffa. Whatever the disease was that had inflicted so much death and suffering on the attacking Mongols, it terrified the Genoese traders so much that they abandoned Caffa and quickly boarded ships to sail home to Italy. Unfortunately for the Italian merchants who abandoned Caffa and sailed for Italy, the Black Death sailed with them. Ships arriving from the Black Sea anchored at Messina and other cities in Sicily where the first accounts of the Black Death in Europe were recorded. Soon after these ships arrived in late 1346, the disease began to infect populations in continental Europe. By 1347, the Black Death was firmly entrenched on the continent and moving north through Italy and Spain into southern France. It would sweep through Europe like wildfire, killing untold numbers of people, leaving some towns and cities abandoned, even killing livestock and animals. The primary wave of disease swept north, through Scandinavia. Historical documents record the last location of a disease with symptoms similar to those of the Black Death in northern Russia in 1353. Impact of the Black Death As it moved from Italy north through Europe, the disease was not referred to as the Black Death, but rather "the Great Pestilence" or alternatively, "the Great Mortality." As the disease infected susceptible populations and then moved on to new regions in Europe, the mood of the people soured. Depression and a feeling of the "end of the world" permeated the lives of those who survived the disease. The Flagellants, a splinter group of the Catholic Church, moved through various cities and towns in Europe, publicly whipping and mutilating themselves, in order to alleviate the epidemic, which they believed was a punishment from God. In some towns, Jews were blamed for causing the disease and burned at the stake. The networks and trading connections that began to flourish in the 12th and 13th centuries withered as xenophobia—the fear and hatred of foreigners—spread. In later centuries, the terminology for the disease changed to what we use now to describe both the disease itself and the perception of the population living through this time—the time of "the Black Death." In the wake of the Black Death, survivors were left with societies that had lost as much as 80% of the local population to the disease. The power of the Catholic Church had peaked just before the disease erupted; the massive death toll from the epidemic led some to conclude that calls for divine protection and healing for the sick had gone unanswered, and secularism or the rejection of religion began to rise, culminating in the dawn of the Renaissance. The Black Death strongly influenced the end of the medieval period and launched a new perception of the world, including expanding geographic boundaries, a reestablishment of long-distance trading networks, and a rebirth of scientific inquiry that had been largely absent since Roman times. Within 150 years of the end of the Black Death, Christopher Columbus would bring news of the New World to Spain, and the spatial concept of the world would never again be the same. Brian Bossak Source Reference Author: Brian Bossak, associate professor of public health Description: This reference article examines how and why smallpox spread, as well as how it impacted the Indigenous populations of the Americas. Context and Things to Consider Think about how smallpox spread in the Americas and why Indigenous populations succumbed to the virus while Europeans did not. Consider the impact such a large loss of life had on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, not only on their survival, but their political future as well. Geography and the Spread of Smallpox in the Americas Convinced that a more direct route to trade in Asia could be discovered by sailing west, Christopher Columbus persuaded King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I of Spain to fund an exploratory expedition in the late 15th century. In 1492, the expedition led by Columbus reached Hispaniola and successfully returned to Spain with news and evidence of a new sailing route to the "New World," or the Americas. The result of the interaction between explorers from the so-called Old World (Europe) and the numerous Indigenous inhabitants of the New World "discovered" by Columbus would soon lead to the collapse and near-annihilation of those Indigenous populations. Numerous factors played a role in the collapse of populations and civilizations in the Americas, but imported diseases such as smallpox played a significant role in such declines. Origins and Impact of Smallpox The first known cases of smallpox reached the Americas around 1518, nearly a quarter- century after Columbus's first visit to the West Indies. Soon after, smallpox and other imported disease decimated the populations of Indigenous inhabitants. Documentation recorded by European colonizers indicates that diseases resembling smallpox took the lives of young and old alike, and that suffering was widespread in the years between 1520 and 1550. In particular, the smallpox virus appears to have had a major impact on the Aztec Empire, sweeping through the capital city of Tenochtitlán and killing the Aztec emperor. Smallpox, and other viral diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella killed significant portions of the population in locations near or connected by trade with sites where European colonizers arrived. The arrival of smallpox and other viral diseases was not the only factor in the near-destruction of Native American populations.

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