IN XI in Europe the population began to grow rapidly. TO XIV it was impossible for a century to feed everyone enough. More or less cultivable lands were used. Bad harvest years happened more and more often, as the climate of Europe began to change - there were great colds and frequent rains. Hunger did not leave the cities and villages, the population suffered. But that wasn't the worst. The weakened population often fell ill. IN 1347 the most terrible epidemic began.

Came to Sicily and ships from the eastern countries. In their holds they carried black rats, which became the main source of the deadly type of plague. A terrible disease began to spread instantly throughout Western Europe. Everywhere people started dying. Some patients died in long agony, while others instantly. The places of mass congestion - the cities - suffered the most. Sometimes there were no people there to bury the dead. For 3 years, the European population has decreased by 3 times. Frightened people fled faster from the cities and spread the plague even more. That period of history is called the time "Black Death".

The plague did not disassemble either kings or slaves. Europe was divided into borders, to somehow reduce the spread of the disease.

IN 1346 year the Genoese attacked modern Feodosia. Used for the first time in history biological weapons. The Crimean Khan threw the corpses of plague victims behind the besieged walls. The Genoese were forced to return to Constantinople, carrying with them a terrible murder weapon. Nearly half of the city's population perished.

European merchants, in addition to expensive goods from Constantinople, brought the plague. Rat fleas were the main carriers of a terrible disease. The port cities were the first to take the hit. Their numbers have drastically decreased.

The sick were treated by the monks, who, according to the will of the service, should have helped the suffering. It was among the clergy and monks that there were the most massive deaths. Believers began to panic: if the servants of God are dying from the plague, so what should the common people do? People considered it a punishment of God.

The Black Death plague took three forms:

Bubonic plague- tumors appeared on the neck, in the groin and armpit. Their size could reach a small apple. The buboes began to turn black and after 3-5 days the patient died. This was the first form of the plague.

Pneumonic plague The person's respiratory system suffered. It was transmitted by airborne droplets. The patient died almost instantly - within two days.

septic plague- the circulatory system was affected. The patient had no chance of survival. He started bleeding from the mouth and nose.

Doctors and ordinary people could not understand what was happening. Fear set in panic. No one understood how he contracted the Black Disease. At the first couple of the dead, they were buried in the church and buried in an individual grave. Later the churches were closed and the graves became common. But they were instantly filled with corpses. The dead people were simply thrown out into the street.

In these terrible times, marauders decided to profit. But they also became infected and died within a few days.

Residents of cities and villages were afraid of getting infected and closed in their homes. The number of people able to work was decreasing. They sowed little and harvested even less. To compensate for losses, landowners began to overestimate land rent. Food prices have risen sharply. Neighboring countries were afraid to trade with each other. A poor diet favored the spread of the plague even more.

The peasants tried to work only for themselves or demanded a large payment for their work. The nobility was in great need of manpower. Historians believe that the plague revived the middle class in Europe. New technologies and methods of work began to appear: an iron plow, a three-field sowing system. In Europe, a new economic revolution began in the face of famine, epidemics and food shortages. The top leadership began to look at the common people differently.

The mood of the population has also changed. People became more withdrawn, avoided neighbors. After all, anyone could get sick. Cynicism develops, and mores have changed to the opposite. There were no feasts and balls. Some lost heart and spent the rest of their lives in taverns.

The society was divided. Some in fear refused a large inheritance. Others considered the plague a finger of fate and began a righteous life. Still others became real recluses and did not communicate with anyone. The rest were saved by good booze and fun.

The common people began to look for the guilty. They became Jews and foreigners. The mass extermination of Jewish and foreign families began.

But after 4 years The Black Death plague in Europe subsided in the 14th century. Periodically, she returned to Europe, but did not bring mass losses. Today man has conquered the plague completely!

The grave looks hastily made, all the bodies were buried on the same day and in very simple coffins. The grave stone found nearby is dated 1665, so archaeologists suggest that this is one of the burial places of the victims of the Great Plague. We decided to recall how the plague pandemics took place in medieval Europe, how people reacted to it, and what consequences the plague led to.

Medieval cities are a relatively small area, bounded by a fortress wall. Inside, wooden or less commonly, stone houses, built close to each other to save usable space, stand in narrow streets. People lived crowded and crowded, their concepts of cleanliness and hygiene were very different from modern ones. In the houses, for the most part, they tried to keep clean, although in medieval books there is a recipe in case “if a rat pinches or wets someone’s face” 1 , but garbage and sewage were thrown directly into the streets. There were also problems with personal hygiene. Every day, people washed only their hands and face - something that everyone can see. But full-fledged baths were rarely taken: firstly, it was expensive and technically difficult to heat a large volume of water, and secondly, frequent washing was not welcomed: it was considered a sign of selfishness and indulgence of bodily weaknesses. Public baths already existed, but were expensive. Therefore, only rich people could afford to bathe relatively often. For example, the English king in the 13th century took a bath once every three weeks. And the monks washed even less often, some twice a year, some four times 2 . In such conditions, lice and fleas were constant companions of people. That is, ideal conditions were created for the emergence and spread of epidemics.

And the epidemic began. A terrible plague pandemic, called the Black Death by contemporaries, came to Europe in 1346. According to the most common version, the plague came with the Mongol troops through the Golden Horde to the Crimea. The Mongols who were in the Crimea besieged the ancient port of Feodosia (Kaffa). The testimony of an eyewitness to the siege, the lawyer Gabriel de Mussy, has been preserved, which, however, some scholars question. As de Mussy describes, the siege was unsuccessful, and the Mongols, among whom there were many infected with the plague, with the help of catapults began to throw plague corpses over the walls of the city in order to infect the besieged. An epidemic broke out in the city. Ships heading from Kafa to Europe carried the plague with ship rats, flea-infested clothing and fabrics, and infected sailors. From Italy and southern France, the plague began to spread northward. Until 1353, the plague swept across Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia and Greenland, and from Ireland to the Moscow principality.

At the beginning of the 14th century, the population of Europe numbered from 70 to 100 million people. During the pandemic of 1346-1353, according to various estimates, 25 to 34 million people died, from a third to half of the population of Europe.

After the end of the pandemic, the plague did not go away. Outbreaks of the disease of varying strength were repeated throughout Europe every 10-15 years, until the end of the 18th century.

The inhabitants of Europe were absolutely unprepared for this disaster. Here is what an eyewitness to Boccaccio's epidemic writes in The Decameron 3 .

Against these diseases, neither the advice of a doctor, nor the strength of any medicine whatsoever helped or benefited ... only a few recovered and almost all died on the third day after the appearance ... of the signs [of the plague].
... [the survivors] almost all strove for one, cruel goal: to avoid the sick and move away from communication with them ...
... The air seemed infected and fetid from the smell of corpses, sick people and medicines.
...Caring about nothing but themselves, many men and women left their hometown, their homes and dwellings, relatives and property, and headed out of town...
... A dead person then caused as much participation as a dead goat ...
Since for a large number of bodies ... there was not enough land consecrated for burial ... then in the cemeteries at the churches, where everything was overcrowded, huge pits were dug out, where hundreds of corpses were brought, piling them up in rows, like goods on a ship, and lightly covered with earth until they reached the edges of the grave.

Now we know that the causative agent of the plague, Yersinia pestis, the plague bacillus, circulates in rodent populations and is carried by fleas. But the plague wand was discovered only in 1894.

In the Middle Ages, God's will was considered the cause of the disease. Everything happens thanks to God, including ailments. If the doctor managed to cure the patient, it was believed that God's mercy helped him in this. The bad alignment of the planets is also caused by God's will, which leads to the accumulation in the air of poisoned miasms that cause diseases. When the French king asked professors of medicine at the University of Paris to explain the causes of the plague of 1348-1349, pundits replied that the epidemic was due to "an important conjunction (connection, combination) of the three higher planets of the sign of Aquarius, which, coupled with other conjunctions and eclipses, caused harmful pollution ambient air; moreover, it is a sign of death, famine and other disasters. 2

Hippocrates and Galen were indisputable authorities in medieval medicine. Hippocrates believed that diseases arise from the inhalation of air containing disease-causing miasms. An epidemic, according to Hippocrates, is a disease similar in symptoms to people living in the same area and inhaling air poisoned by miasma, or fumes rising from the ground. Since people living in the same place breathe the same air, they get sick with the same disease (hence the term "craze"). Hippocrates advised in the event of an epidemic to leave the area with contaminated air. Therefore, during the Black Death epidemic of 1346-1353, flight from infected cities was common, and plague patients were not isolated at first, since they were not considered contagious. On the other hand, Venice already introduced quarantine for visitors from the east (from the Italian quaranta giorni - forty days). Incoming ships were inspected, and if sick or dead were found on them, the ships were burned.

The arrival of the plague in Europe led to the emergence of "plague doctors". Their costumes corresponded to the medieval notion that the cause of the disease was poisoned miasma. Doctors came to the sick (if they came at all) in long leather or canvas robes, long gloves and high boots. The head and face were covered with a mask soaked in wax. In place of the nose was a long beak filled with odorous substances and herbs 1 . "Plague doctors" opened the blood, opened the plague buboes and cauterized them with a red-hot iron, or applied frogs to the buboes to "balance the juices of normal life." Gradually, at the call of the authorities or on their own initiative, scientists began to compile written instructions on what and how to do in case of plague, the so-called "plague writings". It was believed that it was useful to release the "poisoned by pestilence poison" blood. From fever and to strengthen the heart, a compress should be applied to the chest, in which it would be good to add pearls, corals and red sandalwood, and the poor can prepare a compress from a handful of plums, sour apples, lungwort, cinquefoil and other medicinal herbs. If, even after the compress, the buboes do not dissolve, it is necessary to put jars in order to suck the poison out of the body together with the blood 1 .

If the disease could not be cured, it remained to pray that God's wrath would be softened and the epidemic receded. During epidemics, the Virgin Mary, Saints Sebastian and Christopher were especially popular intercessors for the plague. Saint Sebastian was considered an intercessor, apparently because he survived the death sent by arrows. It was believed that only with the intercession of Saint Sebastian could a doctor successfully treat the plague. Saint Christopher was considered an intercessor because he devoted his life to the service of Christ and was one of the few who interacted with Jesus: he carried the little Christ across the river.

In addition to the saints already in existence, the plague created its own, Saint Roch. It was a real person, a French nobleman from Montpellier, who cared for the plague patients, and when he became infected himself, he went into the forest to die. Oddly enough, he recovered and returned to his hometown, where he was mistaken for a spy and thrown into prison. After several years in prison, Roch died. Worship of the saint began immediately after his death.

During the plague, the movement of flagellants (“flagging”) became more active. The movement originated in Italy in the 13th century and quickly spread to central Europe. Anyone could join the movement, regardless of age and social status. The flagellants walked in procession through the streets and, scourging themselves with a belt, a whip or rods, with weeping and singing religious hymns, asked for forgiveness of sins from Christ and the Virgin Mary. At the height of the epidemic, more and more people began to take part in the flagellant processions: prayers, along with scourging, made a strong impression on the audience, and more and more new participants joined the procession. As the flagellants moved from city to city in huge crowds, entering churches and monasteries, they became another source of the spread of the disease. At the end of the epidemic, the movement began to lose popularity, friction with the church began. The sermons of the secular members of the movement, public repentance, unflattering remarks of the flagellants about monks and priests led to the fact that in 1349 the pope issued a bull recognizing the flagellants' teachings as heretical.

The secular city authorities responded to the epidemic by passing anti-luxury laws, establishing rules for wearing clothes, as well as regulating baptismal, wedding and burial ceremonies in order to moderate God's wrath. So, in the German city of Speyer, after the end of the Black Death, a law was passed prohibiting women from wearing men's clothes, because "this new fashion, trampling on the natural differences between the sexes, leads to a violation of moral commandments and entails the punishment of God."

The plague led to the emergence of a new genre in painting and sculpture. After the epidemic of the Black Death, in the 1370s, the Dances of Death began to appear - picturesque and verbal allegories of the frailty of human existence: death leads to the grave of representatives of different strata of society - the nobility, clergy, peasants, men, women, children.

The outbreaks of plague in Europe ended at different times, somewhere in the 17th century, somewhere in the 18th century. And although at first the methods of combating the disease looked, in the opinion of a modern person, ridiculous, over three hundred years the inhabitants of Europe have developed a number of effective measures to combat the plague. For example, in England, during the epidemic of 1665, the city authorities adopted a system of measures against the spread of infection.

The city authorities sent observers to each church parish, who were supposed to question people and find out which houses were infected and who fell ill. Also, “examiners” were sent to the parishes, women who examined sick people and made a diagnosis, and surgeons were sent to help them, who were supposed to treat only those with plague. The sick were isolated: they were either placed in a specially established "plague hut", where the sick were provided with at least minimal care, or they were locked in the house along with all household members. Infected houses were marked with a scarlet cross and the words: “Lord, have mercy on us!” and kept locked up for a month. A watchman was left at the house, who made sure that no one entered or left the infected house.

The dead were to be buried at night to avoid crowds; relatives and friends were not allowed to attend the memorial service and at the burial. It was forbidden to sell furniture and things from the infected houses. To eliminate the infection, the things and bed of the plague patient must be ventilated and smoked with aromatic substances.

In addition, arrangements were made for the maintenance of public places. Garbage from the streets should be taken out by scavengers daily, garbage dumps and sewage tanks should be located as far as possible from the city. Peasants from the surrounding villages, who came to trade in the market, were ordered to sell all goods outside the city. In the markets, products were regularly inspected, spoiled products were not allowed for sale. Money in the market was not passed from hand to hand, but fell into a bowl of vinegar intended for this.

It was forbidden to let wandering beggars and beggars into the city. Amusements leading to crowds and public festivities were also canceled during the epidemic 4 .

Perhaps due to the effectiveness of the measures taken during the epidemic, 75 thousand people died, 15 percent of the city's 460 thousand inhabitants, and not a third or half of the population.

The epidemic of 1665 went down in history as the "Great Plague". The disease came to England from the Netherlands at the end of 1664, and in July 1665 reached London. The epidemic subsided only in the late autumn of 1665, and finally the outbreaks of the plague stopped in London only in 1666, after the Great Fire, which raged for three days and destroyed a huge number of houses in the city center, apparently along with rats and fleas.

So the plague ended in England. There were several more strong outbreaks in Europe, but they ended at the end of the 18th century.

As a result of the plague, the population of Europe decreased by a third, and in some regions by 50%. In England, entire counties died out. A grandiose epidemic aggravated social contradictions to the limit, the Jacquerie in France and the revolt of Wat Tyler are its indirect results.

Plague in Russia

It cannot be said that the epidemic did not affect Russia at all. She came there somewhat later than in Europe - in 1352. The first victim was Pskov, where the plague was brought from the territory of Lithuania. The picture of the disaster did not differ much from what was happening in Western Europe: both men and women of all ages and classes died, 3 or even 5 corpses were put in one coffin - and still they did not have time to bury the dead.

At the request of the Pskovites, a bishop came to the city from Novgorod and conducted a religious procession. On the way back, he also contracted the plague and died. Many Novgorodians came to the Cathedral of St. Sophia to say goodbye to the deceased bishop - and an epidemic broke out in this city too.

In the future, the plague struck several more cities, including Moscow. Her victim was the Prince of Moscow and the Grand Duke Simeon the Proud, as well as his two young sons, Ivan and Simeon.

And yet, comparing the scale of the catastrophe in Russia and in Europe, it is impossible not to notice that Russia suffered to a lesser extent. Some may see this as a blessing from God for Holy Russia, but there were also more material reasons.

Obstacles to the spread of the plague

Russian cities were not as dirty as European ones - for example, cesspools already existed in Russia then, and in the West all sewage was poured into the streets. European cities were a real paradise for rats.

The attitude towards cats - the natural enemies of rodents - in Russia was tolerant, and in Western Europe these animals were exterminated, considering them "accomplices of witches and sorcerers." This attitude towards cats made Europeans defenseless against the invasion of rats.

Finally, the famous Russian banya played a significant role in containing the epidemic. Baths also existed in European cities, but they were visited either for medical purposes or for entertainment - the heroine of the Provencal novel Flamenca even made appointments with her lover in the city bath. Visiting such establishments was an expensive pleasure and an event so exceptional that the German knight Ulrich von Liechtenstein did not want to give it up for the sake of meeting friends. Such uncleanliness made people easy prey for fleas - plague carriers.

In Russia, even the poorest peasant had a bathhouse, and her weekly visit was a common thing. For this reason, the inhabitants of Russia were less likely to acquire fleas and contract the plague.

The topic of this article is very broad and ambiguous. This phenomenon can certainly become the main competitor of the Second World War for the title of the most effective cleaner of the human gene pool in history. So, the plague.

First, it is necessary to say about the general clinic of the plague. For some reason, it is still extremely common that plague is only transmitted through the bites of infected fleas. But in general, this applies only to the local form of the plague, and inflammatory or septic is also transmitted by airborne droplets and contact.

How did the plague

The plague originated in the Gobi desert in the remote steppes of Kazakhstan, essentially by chance. The plague virus penetrated from unicellular organisms into the soil and plants, and from there inevitably into the steppe rodents. The first plague pandemic began in the second half of the 6th century and was named after the greatest ruler of his time, who died from it - the Justinian plague. It began in Byzantine Egypt. Historical sources claim that it claimed about 100 million people throughout the empire and about 25 million people in Europe. In general, this epidemic reached Britain itself. On this account, there is an assumption that she was one of the factors that facilitated the conquest of England by the Saxons. In addition, the plague of Justinian was one of the reasons why Byzantium had to stop its conquests in the east.

Around the same time, the Christian church celebrates the final victory over common sense. The fact is that before the split of the church, the so-called Ecumenical Councils took place, something like the modern G20 congress. Basically, they solved subtle issues regarding church law. Just then, all sorts of prohibitions appeared on normal hygiene and, of course, on close contacts with Jews.

Black Death in Western Europe

Now fast forward to the 14th century. It is this era that appears before the mind's eye of most of us when pronouncing the phrase "black in Europe." The pandemic peaked in 1346-1352, killing (again) 25 million people. That was one third of the total population of Europe. But do not think that everything was done only in Europe. Also, do not think that then it was the only global catastrophe. For example, here is a brief digest of the catastrophes of the 14th century.

• The famous 100 Years War is going on between England and France.
• In Italy, there is a rather tough squabble between the Guelfis and the Gebellins - supporters of the Pope and the German Emperor.
• In Russia, the Tatar-Mongol yoke is established
• In Spain, the reconquista, feudal and wars are in full swing.

Well, besides the political hell, there was also a climatic hell:

• There was an expansion of the steppe zones, which increased the number of carriers of infection.
• There was less food. Almost the entire previous (XIII) century is characterized by powerful droughts.
• Greenland, due to the growth of ice, the settlements of the Vikings almost completely disappear.
• The so-called "Little Ice Age" begins.
• Frequent and strong earthquakes occur in the Himalayas
• Numerous volcanoes are active in India
• In Russia in the XIV century dry years, the invasion of rodents and famine.
• In China, in the 30-40s of the XIV century, powerful seismic activity begins, leading to the collapse of some mountain ranges and to very strong floods and, accordingly, to famine. In one of these floods alone, which hit the capital of the Middle Kingdom, about 400,000 people died.
• You can also remember the eruption of Etna in 1333 and the subsequent increase in humidity, as a result of which many cities of Western Europe were flooded due to heavy rains.
• There have been several major locust outbreaks in Germany
• Across Europe, there is an increase in the number of cases of attacks by wild animals due to starvation.
• Very cold winters and a major flood in 1354 that literally devastated the shores of the North Sea.
• It was also noted that the epidemic of the plague was preceded by the extremely widespread distribution of smallpox and leprosy, and the 14th century was no exception.

As you can see, the plague was not the only problem of that era. In addition, there were outbreaks of mass mental illness everywhere. By the way, there is one very interesting hypothesis on this score.

Mass insanity and psychotropic substances

American explorer Shane Rogers and his team decided to explore the most popular places on the planet among ghost hunters. Not even just points, but the so-called haunted houses, and in so many places they found the presence of a dangerous mold that can cause a psychotropic effect. Here the idea was born that psychotropic substances can be a strong enough catalyst for the formation of ideas about the supernatural. The same researchers also thought that agricultural technology could only relatively recently get rid of ergot living on cereals (it was from ergot that Albert Hoffmann synthesized the famous one). Therefore, ergot poisoning among peasants in the Middle Ages was a fairly common occurrence, and this can explain both ergotism and massive crazy dances and much more. This hypothesis has its own logical holes and its own logical patches that these holes close, so it is ultimately up to you to believe it or not.

Again about the plague

But back to the plague. Incompetent medicine and the almost complete lack of hygiene encouraged by the Catholic Church were the main factors in the rapid spread of the plague. Although in the Orthodox tradition there is a strange habit of kissing the same icon during mass epidemics.

In addition, sometimes the very fact of infection was hidden for various reasons, and the already blazing epidemic was learned only after several deaths. Once in Ovignon they learned about the plague only when 700 monks died in one night in one of the monasteries.

There is also a "beautiful story" about Khan Dzhanibek, or rather about his Tatar army and their biological weapons. For example, when besieging the city of Kafu, they threw plague corpses at it with the help of catapults. Previously, there was a popular version that this was the beginning of the European pandemic, but now this hypothesis is recognized as extremely unconvincing. The version is usually recognized that the plague entered Europe through the main trade routes from the territory of Italy, Byzantium and Spain.

It is impossible not to mention how the plague was perceived in the XIV century and how they tried to treat it. Medieval medicine could offer innovative methods such as:

• Attempts to absorb poisonous miasms in an infected room with an onion lying on the floor.
• Walking the streets with flowers
• Wearing pouches containing human feces around the neck
• Classic bloodletting
• Insertion of needles into testicles
• Sprinkling foreheads with the blood of slaughtered puppies and pigeons
• Tinctures of garlic and cabbage juice (which, against the general background, looks somehow too harmless)
• Kindling fires to clean the air from infection
• Collecting human gases in jars.
• Red-hot iron (the only method that somehow helped) plague buboes were cut and cauterized, if a person experienced this, he could have a chance to cope with the disease.

But the most effective was the formula “cito, longe, tarde” – “Quickly, far away, for a long time” to get out of the area of ​​infection somewhere far away.

plague doctors

Separately, it is worth mentioning the bright characters of this era, who have already managed to become part of the mass media - plague doctors. They were paid 4 times more than ordinary doctors, despite the fact that many of them had no education at all (they were politely called empiricists). Mortuses became no less important characters on the streets of medieval plague cities - people who had been ill with the plague or simply criminals who were not sorry. They were mostly engaged in cleaning up corpses. also had a cultural side effect.

First of all, this is a rapid increase in the number of flagellants (from the Latin Flagellare - to beat, flog, torment). Apparently, it seemed to many that self-flagellation is a great way to cope with the gray (black?) Plague medieval everyday life. Religious hysteria and ideas about the approaching apocalypse are still worth arriving here. Distilled alcohol has also become insanely popular. Firstly, it was a good antiseptic, and secondly, at such times it is probably difficult not to drink.

Jewish conspiracy

Of course, one cannot fail to mention the Jewish conspiracy theory, which flourished in those years. Hysteria about the Jews and their pogroms are back in vogue. And after she forced confessions from several dozen suspects that they poisoned the wells, everything generally became bad. During this period, the Jewish conspiracy became trendy again throughout Europe.

(Suddenly) good sides. In Europe, a lot of cheap land and real estate appeared because less demand is cheaper than supply. Well, in the end, for centuries to come, mankind had a gloomy source of inspiration. A lot of stupid legends and superstitions are still associated with the plague.

Case in Nagorno-Karabakh

A plague epidemic broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh and someone began to dig up fresh plague burials. An investigation was carried out and as it turned out, there was some kind of local belief that explained that if family members begin to die one by one, you need to dig up the very first deceased and eat his heart and

One of the most ancient diseases, and perhaps the most famous disease that has become a household name for any epidemic, is the plague. At the cost of many lives, humanity has learned to treat it, but it could not completely win. So, in the summer of 2016, a boy was admitted to the Gorny Altai hospital. The diagnosis is plague.

PLAGUE EPIDEMICS IN ANCIENT

When this disease appeared is still unknown. However, Rufus of Ephesus, who lived in the 1st century AD, referred to more ancient healers who lived in the 3rd century BC and described epidemics in Libya, Syria and Egypt. Doctors described buboes on the bodies of the sick, so, apparently, these were the first recorded cases of bubonic plague.

There were also earlier references to the plague. For example, the Plague of Athens (also called the Plague of Thucydides). It originated in Athens during the Peloponnesian War (430 BC). For two years, outbreaks of the disease were noted in the city, which claimed the lives of every fourth citizen (including Pericles, who fell ill). Then the disease disappeared. Modern studies of the burials of the victims of the plague of Athens have shown that in fact it was an epidemic of typhoid fever.

The so-called "Plague of Antoninus" or "Plague of Galen" has become no less controversial. The epidemic broke out in 165 and claimed about 5 million lives in fifteen years. However, the physician Claudius Galen, who described the disease (this epidemic is sometimes called in his honor), mentioned that the sick had a black rash. Many researchers believe that, most likely, smallpox, not plague, caused the epidemic. Others believe that it was simply an unknown form of the plague.

Egypt and the Eastern Roman Empire also did not escape the terrible infection. The outbreak of the pandemic was called the Justinian Plague, and it lasted about 60 years - from 527 to 565. At the height of the epidemic, when the plague reached densely populated Constantinople, 5 thousand people died in the city every day, and sometimes the number of deaths reached 10 thousand people. The number of victims of the pandemic is estimated differently, but the most "terrible" estimates suggest a colossal number of victims: 100 million people in the East and 25 million people in Europe. In 2014, the results of a study by Canadian and US geneticists were published in The Lancet Infectious Diseas. Having reconstructed the plague bacillus from the teeth of two victims of the Justinian plague, scientists found that it is seriously different from the genotype of the modern pathogen. Geneticists have suggested that people have become less susceptible to the Justinian plague pathogen, and therefore the pathogen has become a dead end branch of evolution.

"BLACK DEATH"

The most famous plague pandemic has been called the Black Death. It appears to have been the result of a colder climate. Cold and hunger drove the rodents out of the Gobi desert closer to human habitation. In 1320, the first cases of the disease were recorded. First, the epidemic swept China and India, then by 1341 along the Great Silk Road reached the lower reaches of the Don and Volga. Having devastated the Golden Horde, the disease went to the Caucasus and the Crimea, and from there it was delivered to Europe by Genoese ships. According to the story of the Genoese notary Gabriel de Mussy, the troops of Khan Dzhanibek, who besieged the Genoese fortress in Kaffa, were unable to complete the siege due to an epidemic. But before retreating, they threw the corpses of the dead into the fortress and successfully infected the Italians.

As a result, the pandemic swept through Constantinople, the Middle East, the Balkan Peninsula and Cyprus. The plague entered Russia through Pskov and raged there until 1353. The dead did not have time to bury, although they put 5-6 people in a coffin. Rich people tried to hide from illness in monasteries, giving away all their property, and sometimes even their own children. Residents of Pskov called for help from the Novgorod Bishop Vasily. He walked around the city in procession, but on the way he died of the plague. During the magnificent funeral of the bishop, many residents of Novgorod came to say goodbye to him. Soon the epidemic broke out there, and then spread throughout Russia.

The number of victims of the Black Death is estimated at 60 million people.

At that time, medicine did not find effective ways to combat the disease, but an important step was taken - they came up with a quarantine system. It was first implemented on the Venetian island of Lazaretto. Ships arriving there from plague-ridden countries had to stop at some distance from the coast, and anchored there for 40 days. Only after this period, if the plague did not manifest itself, could the ship approach the shore and begin to unload.

THE LAST PLAGUE EPIDEMIC

The last major plague epidemic broke out in 1910 in Manchuria. The first outbreaks of the disease were noted as early as 1894 in Transbaikalia. After the railroad, outbreaks became more frequent. In the summer of 1910, a plague broke out among the ground squirrels, but by autumn people began to die. The first victims of the disease were Chinese workers in the village at Manchuria station, but the epidemic quickly spread along the railway. In total, according to various estimates, it claimed from 60 to 100 thousand human lives.

Russia has taken emergency measures to counter the epidemic. From dangerous areas, the import of tabargan skins was banned, and a cordon was established from the Amur to Blagoveshchensk. The doctors who went to the place of epidemiological danger stated that it is urgent to improve sanitary conditions. In Irkutsk, it was decided to equip a hospital right at the station - so as not to carry patients through the whole city. The plague victims were also buried separately. A vaccine was prescribed from Petersburg, and the city began to exterminate rats.

In China, the epidemic was stopped, largely due to the cremation of the bodies of the dead and their belongings. At a time when the number of corpses to be cremated began to decrease, Dr. Wu Liande gave a strange order - he ordered all residents to celebrate the New Year merrily and blow up more firecrackers. However, this order was strange only at first glance. The fact is that the sulfur products released during the explosion of crackers are an excellent disinfectant.

PLAGUE IN HISTORY, LITERATURE AND ART

However, all this concerns already documentary evidence. Meanwhile, the plague was mentioned in the Epic of Gilgamesh. True, it was said there only about the mortality of the disease, it is impossible to understand what kind of plague it was. The plague is also mentioned in the Bible - the First Book of Kings tells of the bubonic plague that struck the Philistines who captured the Ark of the Covenant

In literature, the most famous "plague singer" is certainly the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio. His Decameron was written just at the time when the Black Death turned Venice and Genoa into dead cities. In the preface to The Decameron, he described many of the horrors that struck Italy during the epidemic, and noted that a person who died of the plague "caused as much participation as a dead goat." Daniel Defoe, in his historical novel Diary of a Plague City, described how, along with the rampant disease in London, crime also unleashed. In his short story M.D., Rudyard Kipling described how helpless the doctors were during the plague. The protagonist found the right way of treatment, based on metaphysical considerations. Pushkin, based on a scene from the poem of the poet John Wilson "The Plague City", wrote the dramatic scene "Feast during the Plague", describing hedonistic unbridledness against the backdrop of tragedy.

Of modern literary works, the most famous existential novel by Albert Camus "The Plague", in which the plague appears not only as a disease, but also is an allegory for the "brown plague" - fascism - in particular and evil in general. Also widely known is the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez "Love in the Time of Plague". However, under this name, the work is known only in Russia, since in the original it is still about cholera.

The plague epidemics also affected painting. The "Black Death" served as a flourishing of religious painting and brought to artists a number of traditional allegorical subjects: "Dance of Death", "Triumph of Death", "Three Dead and Three Living", "Death Playing Chess".

Idioms with the word "plague" are still used in speech. The most famous are "Feast during the plague", "Plague of the 20th century" (AIDS), "Plague on both your houses".

The plague remains a relevant concept in the new century. In the summer of 2016, Paradox Interactive presented updates to their video game Crusader Kings II, released in 2012. Thanks to the upgrades, it will be possible to control the plague epidemic. For example, lock yourself in a castle. However, the relevance of the plague is based on real facts - relic foci of the epidemic still persist, and for 1989 - 2004. about 40 thousand cases of the disease were noted in 24 countries, and mortality was approximately 7% of the total number of cases. The plague has not disappeared. She just froze.