Written 60 years after the bubonic plague swept London, Defoe’s account may have been a hoax, but it still rings true today.
Engraving from ‘The Fearefull Summer,’ a treatise published after the plague of 1625 and reprinted again in 1636, by John Taylor.
(McGill Library/Paul Yachnin)
Plague ravaged England repeatedly during Shakespeare’s lifetime. The playwright translated the experience of sickness and restoration in many ways on the stage.
Detail from Raphael rooms in Vatican museum.
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Ancient Greek philosophers including Plato likened civic leaders to doctors, creating a healthy society through balance and moderation. Those ideas feed into what we expect from leaders today.
The Black Death inspired medieval writers to document their era of plague. Their anxieties and fears are starkly reminiscent of our own even if their solutions differ.
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Thucydides’ description of the plague that struck Athens in 430 BC is one of the great passages of Greek literature. It focusses on the social response, both of those who died and those who survived.
President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the press briefing room at the White House on March 15, 2020.
Getty/Tasos Katopodis
Usually when a leader handles a crisis poorly, it’s politically costly. But President Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus crisis is not likely to hurt him, says an expert on health crises.
The Banquet in the Pine Forest, one of a number of pictures derived from tales in Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Sandro Botticelli
Greek epics remind audiences that leaders need to be able to plan for the future based on what has happened in the past. They need to understand cause and effect.
Body temperature scans are one tool to interrupt the spread of disease by travelers.
Tatan Syuflana/APImages.com
Travelers may undergo screenings at airports to control the spread of coronavirus. Research shows that these efforts have little to no effect on slowing the spread of disease.
Umrah pilgrims pray near the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File
Saudi Arabia has temporarily suspended pilgrimage to its holy sites. Many Muslims travel to these holy sites round the year for a pilgrimage known as Umrah. Here is what it means to their faith.
A 1411 depiction of a man and woman suffering with bubonic plague, or “Black Death”.
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The official naming of COVID-19 has the tone of a committee decision. Historically, names for diseases have not been quite so well thought out and were more likely to offend.
What happened to make plague able to cause devastating epidemics, as in this depiction from 1349?
Pierart dou Tielt/Wikimedia
People caught and died from plague long before it caused major epidemics like the Black Death in the middle ages. Could what scientists call cultural resistance be what kept the disease under control?
World TB Day will be observed March 24, with the good news that deaths from tuberculosis are declining. But a trend toward confining those with TB threatens to stall advances.