What is the History of Pandemics

Pandemics have long been a part of human history. This includes various disease that spread globally and have, in many different periods, created a large-scale population reduction. For ancient periods, pandemics were often conflated with plagues. While the recent COVID-19 pandemic is of concern, many other pandemics have caused far worse social disruption and destruction.

Earliest Evidence for Pandemics

Some of the earliest recorded epidemics may appear by the mid-2nd millennium BCE. In Mesopotamia, recordings of plague are made in the Old Babylonian period (1800-1600 BCE), which could have been a pandemic that had started in Asia or spread in Asia. By around 1400 BCE, the Hittites mention plague was spread through their country and that they had asked the gods to spread the disease to their enemies, taking it away. In fact, by 1200 BCE, a great collapse of states occurred, including the the Hittites, and along the eastern Mediterranean, with the Mycenaean Greeks collapsing as well. Texts indicate that great waves of invasions occurred that caused this collapse. However, it is likely something else triggered While nobody knows for sure what triggered these mass migrations and invasions, one possibility is a chain reaction of events across Eurasia led to migrations that pushed groups to take risky invasions of areas such as southeast Europe and Mediterranean region. Pestilence, plagues, and global pandemics have been leading reasons as to what caused these migrations and invasions to occur. The events were so pronounced that for 200 years, few written records were produced and has been called one of the earliest great 'Dark Ages' due to the scale of impact these events had on established complex societies around the Mediterranean region.

One relatively well-known early pandemic was a pandemic that fatally weakened the power of Athens in the 5th century BCE. From around 430-426 BCE, historians believe typhoid likely became widespread in Athens, killing not only many of its citizens but also weakening its army. This led Athens to lose power to its competitor city-states, particularly Sparta, in the Peloponnesian War. Athens would not regain any significant influence for generations, as the population had to recover from the devastation of the outbreak. While other states may have been affected by this outbreak, the death rates were so high and sudden that in a way it likely limited the impact of the outbreak mainly to Athens. This possibly explains why it was mainly Athens that weakened and not other states. Cholera may have been the most common forms of epidemics that could have transformed into global or regional pandemics. In fact, cholera would remain among the most frequently reoccurring epidemic and pandemic until the 20th century, by then improved sanitation and drinking water had reduced its effects.