Syphilis, 1494–1923 Des Inoculations Syphilitiques. From the holdings of Center for the History of Medicine/Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine—Harvard Medical School. Syphilis was first reported in Europe in 1494 among soldiers (and their camp followers) involved in a war between France and Naples. The disease was striking in two ways: for its unpleasantness and for its status as a new disease, unknown to the ancient medical authorities. Syphilis would remain a significant social and medical problem through the mid-20th century. The “French Disease” Until the 19th century, syphilis was known by many different names, but the most common was the “French Disease.” (The French called it the “Neopolitan disease,”…

Spanish Influenza in North America, 1918–1919 Spanish Influenza, Three-Day Fever, The Flu. From the holdings of Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library—Harvard College Library. The Spanish influenza pandemic, which began in 1918, caught every nation by surprise. It infected an estimated 500 million people and killed 50 to 100 million of them in three waves. Governments around the world responded in ways that were reactive and almost ineffective before the pandemic ended in 1919 just as suddenly as it began one year earlier. The Spanish influenza pandemic differed from previous influenza pandemics in its unprecedented virulence. Its unique characteristics included unusually high case fatality, especially among 20– to 40–year-olds. Allies fighting…

Herbarius. Patauie impressus: [Johann Petri], anno domi[ni] [et]cetera lxxxv [1485]. From the holdings of Center for the History of Medicine/Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine—Harvard Medical School. In the late medieval and early modern periods, the term “pestilence” was principally used to refer to two diseases new to post–classical Europe: plague and syphilis. The apparent novelty of these diseases presented significant problems to the educated physicians who were the students and interpreters of the canonical medical works of Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna. In this medical tradition, there were no new diseases: all illness could be interpreted in terms of traditional humoral theory and Galenic physiology and medicine. But the devastating…

The Great Plague of London, 1665 Old Saint Paul’s: A Tale of the Plague and the Fire. From the holdings of Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library—Harvard College Library. The Great Plague of London in 1665 was the last in a long series of plague epidemics that first began in London in June 1499. The Great Plague killed between 75,000 and 100,000 of London’s rapidly expanding population of about 460,000. First suspected in late 1664, London’s plague began to spread in earnest eastwards in April 1665 from the destitute suburb of St. Giles through rat-infested alleys to the crowded and squalid parishes of Whitechapel and Stepney on its way to the…

The Prevention and Treatment of Epidemic Cholera. From the holdings of Andover–Harvard Theological Library—Harvard Divinity School. First appearing in Europe and North America beginning in 1831–1832 and presumed to have come from India, epidemic cholera returned and traveled around the world many times through the end of the century, killing many thousands. Causing profuse and violent cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, with dehydration so rapid and severe the blood thickens and the skin becomes deathlike and blue, cholera victims can die in a matter of hours. Because 19th-century transformations in industrial, urban, political, and cultural life were intimately connected with discussions of proper public health practices and causes of disease, attempts…

The Boston Smallpox Epidemic, 1721 A Narrative of the Method and Success of Inoculating the Small-Pox in New England, 1722. From the holdings of Houghton Library—Harvard College Library. Between April and December 1721, 5,889 Bostonians had smallpox, and 844 died of it. October was the worst month, with 411 deaths. Smallpox caused more than three–quarters of all the deaths in Boston that year. Smallpox is a very old disease, with evidence for its presence going back centuries. In Europe and the United States, bouts of smallpox were considered to be almost inevitable, and the disease was greatly feared. Epidemics could kill 30% of those infected and cause permanent disfiguration in…

on April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Ga., at age 63. Vice President Harry S Truman became president. Go to article » On April 12, 1903, Jan Tinbergen, the Dutch economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1969 for his work with econometric models, was born. Following his death on June 9, 1994, his obituary appeared in The Times. Go to obituary » | Other birthdays » On This Date 1606 England adopted the Union Jack as its flag. 1861 The Civil War began as Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. 1877 The…

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 by Molly Billings, June, 1997 modified RDS February, 2005 The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people. It has been cited as the most devastating epidemic in recorded world history. More people died of influenza in a single year than in four-years of the Black Death Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351. Known as “Spanish Flu” or “La Grippe” the influenza of 1918-1919 was a global disaster. The Grim Reaper by Louis Raemaekers In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down…