Related topic is the "Great Dying" which killed the majority of Native Americans:<p><a href="http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html</a><p>Of note is how smallpox was used as a weapon:<p>>> "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians, by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." — Jeffery Amherst<p>Sources:<p>Disease as a weapon against Native Americans
<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_...</a><p>Smallpox Blankets
<a href="http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=407&Itemid=617" rel="nofollow">http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&vie...</a>
"Published in History TodayVolume 55 Issue 3 March 2005"<p>The article is a bit old, and misses out on the large amount of genetic evidence since then sequenced and analyzed. Cui et al found that the closest living relatives to the Black Death stem from north-west China. That is about the only evidence we have on where the Black Death came from, and it does point to an origin in or near China.<p><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/110/2/577.figures-only" rel="nofollow">http://www.pnas.org/content/110/2/577.figures-only</a>
"If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it; but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place."
As mentioned in another comment, smallpox has killed more than it's fair share of humans. An estimated 300 million in the 20th century alone[0].<p>Maybe lesser known is the Spanish Flu which killed more than 50 million people worldwide within 2 years (1918, 1919). The strangest thing is that it seems to have largely targeted young and healthy adults (it, like the Black Plague, seems to have originated in China[1]).<p>[0] -<a href="http://www.who.int/about/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_smallpox.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.who.int/about/bugs_drugs_smoke_chapter_1_smallpox...</a>
[1] - <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/" rel="nofollow">http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140123-spani...</a>
"The infection takes three–five days to incubate in people before they fall ill, and another three–five days before, in 80 per cent of the cases, the victims die."<p>Takes at least 6 days for the infected to die. That's a really deadly disease. Even Ebola was not that fast. The WHO website mentioned that it takes 21 days for Ebola patient to show just the symptoms, which could mean it would still take few more days for the patient to die.
many people are convinced today that the (smallpox and other) epidemics introduced to north america by european settlers were real. allegedly 100m native american people inhabited north america before and it is assumed that 90% fell victim to these epidemics. that would make it a greater catastrophe, measured by number of casualties, if i'm not mistaken?
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Rice_and_Salt</a><p><i>> The novel explores how subsequent world history might have been different if the Black Death plague had killed 99% of Europe's population, instead of a third.</i><p>it's an interesting effort to imagine human civilisation guided primarily by buddhism and islam, without christianity ever ascending.
I'll also point out that like with aftershocks with earthquakes, there were multiple smaller waves of plagues after this initial event, breaking out in various regions over subsequent centuries.<p>It seemed to have died down after around 1700, but there were regular plague outbreaks up to that point. None were as widespread or as devastating as the initial outbreak, although that was of small comfort to those thousands that did die in later outbreaks.
While we are on this topic I would like to recommend to all who have not seen it yet "The Seventh Seal", Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece on dealing with death and God's silence when we face it. Action is set in medieval Sweden, during the time of the Black Death plague.<p>The opening scene:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yXBIigZbg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4yXBIigZbg</a>
Has anyone read this book that proposes the "black death" was due to meteor/comet strikes? I have been interested in doing so but never got around to it.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Light-Black-Death-Mike-Baillie/dp/0752435981/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198070365&sr=8-1" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Light-Black-Death-Mike-Baillie/dp/0752...</a>
Many historians now think there were about 100 million people living in the Americas when Columbus arrived and disease reduced this to 2 million over the course of 150 years. All the atrocities of the Spanish combined couldn't come close to the ravages of disease from a populace that lived in their own filth.
There is a new book coming out about this focused on the Black Death in Ireland: <a href="http://irishhistorypodcast.ie/the-black-death/" rel="nofollow">http://irishhistorypodcast.ie/the-black-death/</a>
Another terrible catastrophe was the colonisation of India, resulting ultimately in it's economic destruction, massive famines of millions of people etc. In fact a great catastrophe the western colonisation of the rest of the world starting from about 1497 in general. It was extraordinarily brutal throughout the world. For an excellent overview of this history of European colonisation of the world see Noam Chomsky's book "Year 501, The Conquest Continues". It's available online.<p>But the black death was obviously a major global catastrophe. In fact Europe was for centuries a most brutal place with disease, warfare, and oppression.
Or, as some might say, the best thing that ever happened to European society.<p>Paper became cheap because of a cotton glut and labour became expensive leading to egalitarian lifestyles.
It was not a big deal in Sweden.
The government was acting fast to quarantine the areas.
Mostly only children bellow 14 died. A few years later however most families had new children. All in all it was not a big deal for that point in time. Remember that back in those days most people had more children per person and death was a larger part of life than now.
Isn't that why religions have been so successful. They are not only a psychological coping mechanisms, but actually increase the success (or fitness, if you like) of the societies they dominate. So this (don't leave an infected area) is an excellent meme in Dawkins' original sense.
> Of note is how smallpox was used as a weapon: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians, by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." — Jeffery Amherst<p>Someone should find those Europeans and punish them. Or at the very least make their descendants feel guilty forever.