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Antonine Plague, Black Death and Smallpox Epidemic Versus COVID-19

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Antonine Plague, Black Death and Smallpox Epidemic Versus COVID-19 STUDIA ORIENTALNE 2021, nr 2 (20) ISSN 2299-1999 https://doi.org/10.15804/so2021206 Agnieszka Banaś1 Antonine Plague, Black Death and Smallpox Epidemic versus COVID-19. How Did Humankind Cope with the Grapple Against the Biggest Epidemics, and What Does it Look Like Today? We have lived in an environment of invisible foes for thousands of years which caused epidemics all over the world2. To date, various notes concerning plagues have retained among others in the Bible and ancient texts, including Thucydides or Procopius3. The most notorious epidemic besetting humanity throughout centuries had been obviously the Black Death, treated by many people as pandemic which had devoured Europe over centuries. Besides, on the whole globe there oc- curred cyclically other plagues which took its toll. All along the plagues phe- nomenon has thus caused anxiety, which could have been perceivable inter alia in the Catholics singing the supplication: “From the air, hunger, fire and war, save us Lord!”4.Yet the very comprehension what the given plague was and how to ward off it we owe to the 19th and 20th cent. Medicine, mainly medical practitioners from the branch of bacteriology. Medicine did not know any treatment methods for particular diseases for a long time, as well as ap- propriate “curative” means, thereby causing humankind overmany harm. In each epoch, man’s main target was above all to survive and to avert from 1 University of Opole, Poland, ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9095-0883, e-mail: agniesz- [email protected]. 2 S. Wrzesiński, Oddech śmierci. Życie codzienne podczas epidemii, Kraków 2011, p. 132. 3 F.F. Cartwright, Niewidoczny wróg. Zarazy i historia, Warsaw 2005. 4 T. Srogosz, Staropolskie postrzeganie klęsk elementarnych, [in:] Staropolski ogląd świata. Materiały z kon- ferencji Wrocław 23–24 października 2004, eds. B. Rok, F. Wolański, Wrocław 2004, p. 44. A. Banaś • Antonine Plague, Black Death and Smallpox Epidemic 83 oneself the inevitable death’s spectre for as long a period as possible5. Thus, the phantom of infectious diseases assailing humanity since time began, which may be grouped into sporadic, endemic, epidemical and pandemic prevalence, procured that people feared every occurring plague in their ambience6. The Antonine Plague, perhaps as one of the first more known to neoteric people, described as pestis Antonini, was the greatest epidemic in the Roman Empire period. Termed the pox plague by historians, it was brought to Europe by Roman legions that had returned from eastern campaigns. It had rampaged probably between 165–180 C.E. and claimed the lives of millions of people, among whom there were two Roman emperors. Its name is predominantly connected with the Antonine dynasty, which at that time was the ruling dy- nasty in Rome and also with a Roman doctor Galen, termed later as Galen’s plague. It obviously was not the only massive plague in the world of ancient Rome. Naturally there were more epidemics in the times of the republic and the Roman Empire. It is worth mentioning here the renowned plague in 65 C.E. in the reign of Nero, assessed by many contemporaneous scholars as the “bubonic plague”. Being highly contagious and acrimonious, it took the lives of a great deal of human beings. Accounts of witnesses describing the toll of this epidemic were retained to date. The issue at stake here among others is about the Greek doctor Galen who described above all the appearance of a rash by those who were infected. It had covered the area of the whole body in a black color. Today it is inferred that the very pox had reaped its bitter harvest. Further symptoms of infection came from the digestive tract in the shape of diarrhea and this was accurately noticed by Galen, that a black stool meant generally imminent death. Other symptoms were also fever, emesis, bad breath, cold cough and ulceration of larynx and windpipe. Thus, it had been struggled to prevent from these afflictions using contemporary medicine. Unfortunately, any brew or using herbs was to no avail7. Bleeding, prayers or casting spells were equally ineffectual. The apparent consequence of the epidemic was population decline on ter- ritories embraced by the disease. It is calculated that in Italy and Gaul there could die on account of the plague even 20% of population and the region, which was profoundly affected by it, was the population of Egypt – there 5 S. Leff, V. Leff, Od czarów do medycyny współczesnej, Warsaw 1959, p. 5. 6 A. Karpiński, W walce z niewidzialnym wrogiem. Epidemie chorób zakaźnych w Rzeczypospolite w XVI– –XVIII wieku i ich następstwa demograficzne, społeczno-ekonomiczne i polityczne, Warsaw 2000, p. 57. 7 R.J. Littman, M.L. Littman, Galen and the Antonine Plague, „American Journal of Philology” 1973, Vol. 94, No. 3, p. 94. 84 Artykuły • ARTICLES • СтAтьи the population decreased by over 30%. Lack of drugs, no help from doctors and bodies not immune to pox were the reason for humankind’s desolating. People migrated in shoals to territories free from the plague and escaping – from nowadays perspective – was essentially the most effective method of avoiding the infection. The plague annihilated Rome’s peak of puissance, it decimated the empire’s capital. Despite saying that it had not directly influ- enced the empire’s decline in the 5th century, it yet prompted Rome towards its downturn. Thus, if we add to this the barbarian invasions into impaired territories, Marcus Aurelius’s death, then not only political results can be seen but above all socio-economic (e.g. business or farming slump), depopulation and humanity’s death8. The next plague known to us from historical traduction was the Athenian plague (430 B.C) which ravished the ancient city-state – Athens, killing about 75–100 thousands Athenians and weakening their position during the II Pelo- ponnesian war. Thucydides, a Greek historian in his great work entitled “The Peloponnesian war” recounted the contemporaneous plague’s course in this way: [...] it began, as it is said, firstly in Ethiopia, on the south of Egypt, then it pierced to Egypt and Libya and to the [...] Persian country. To Athens it intruded suddenly and originally attacked people living in Piraeus [...]9. The disease’s scope in the Mediterranean Basin did not constrained itself only to Greece by its own but it ranged over almost all the region. The diseased body whilst touching did not seem to be excessively in- flamed, it was not pale, as well, but blushing, livid and covered with alveoli and ulcers; whereas inside the diseased was so much feverish that the person could not endure even the lightest array or the subtlest covering but wanted to lie naked and preferably would dive into cold water. [...] for the disease flared to genitals, to fingers and toes and caused privation of those body parts, sometimes even the eyes. It hap- pened that humans on the morrow of recovering lost their memory, they did not realize who they are and did not recognize their relatives10. The corpses were lying on the city’s streets and doctors were powerless. Many did die in loneliness, a few people risked care for the infected ones. The society’s decline dawned. Did anything change in that case on this field? For 8 Ibidem. 9 Thucydides, Peloponnesian Wars, Vol. II, Warsaw 2005, pp. 113–114. 10 Ibidem. A. Banaś • Antonine Plague, Black Death and Smallpox Epidemic 85 sure the level of today’s medicine is quite different then it was as far back as in ancient or modern times. Even today many people are afraid of any contact with the infected, trying to escape to places with safe zone. As for relying to the Athenian plague itself: In general this plague transcended anything that could by described. It had erupted with howling strength and above all it differed from other diseases in that birds and those tetrapods that consume human flesh (though there were many not inurned dead bodies) did not approach them, and if they did so, they perished after first bites11. Scholars to date try to determine which disease factually had generated the epidemic. There are indecisive arguments, whether one of the first de- scriptions of the epidemic given by Thucydides, also known as “The Athenian plague” was in fact a plague (it is possible that it was actually typhoid fever, dengue, some kind of pox or virus of haemorrhagic fever). The Justinian Plague, the next epidemic, involved in turn the Byzantine Empire, including the capital city Constantinople in the years 541–542 A.C. It caused multiple changes in politics, economy and in society, as well as a fair amount of deceases (the number fluctuates betw. 25–50 mln people). It is treated as the largest plague in Europe’s stories just before the Black Death in 14th cent., it is accurately termed as the first view of the 14-cent. Plague12. Procopius from Caesarea himself said about it as follows: [...] it had fallen on the whole earth, damaging the lives of many, despite differing diametrically from each other and it was not connected with their physical appearance or age…13 Scholastic, on the other hand, in his output presented the plague’s symp- toms in order that future generations could somehow ward it off by trying to comprehend its causes: [...] By some patients, starting from the head and causing hyperemia of the eyes and the face’s swelling, the illness passed into the larynx and extracted the victim from the living ones. Others suffered from loose stools. By some there appeared abscesses around the groin, in the background there was a strong fever and in two, three days the patients died.
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