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Period: to
Epidemics in Europe
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Outbreak of the bubonic plague in Amsterdam
This spurt of the plague in the merchant city of Amsterdam, allowed for the contamination of other countries through trade routes and the "Great Plague of London" in 1665. The American derivation of the nursery rhyme "Ring-a-ring o' roses", allegedly based on the symptoms of the plague :
http://www.mamalisa.com/mp3/ringaroundtherosie.mp3 -
1st successful vaccination
Edward Jenner, an English physician, successfully immunizes an 8 year old boy from smallpox after having inoculated him with the cowpox (a less aggressive form of the same virus). He explains his findings in his 1798 document "An inquiry into the causes and effects of the Veriolae Vacinae, or cow-pox" :
http://www.bartleby.com/38/4/1.html -
"Irish Potato Famine"
This period of starvation led to massive immigration of Ireland's poor population, which spread typhus into North America. The arriving immigrants were parked in "fever sheds" to avoid contamination, leading to thousands of supplemental deaths. Painting "Typhus" by Théophile Hamel, 1849 :
http://www.iisresource.org/siteimages/tn_grosse_isle.jpg -
Robert Koch's discovery on tuberculosis
Koch, a Prussian doctor, announced he had isolated the infectious agent behind tuberculosis, which eventually led to the finding of a cure against the disease. John Keat's poem "Ode to a Nightingale" describing tuberculosis, which he died from in 1818 :
http://www.bartleby.com/126/40.html -
Death of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from syphilis
The famous French painter dies from complications due to the venereal disease that is syphilis, an extremely wide-spread illness, especially in 19th century Europe. "Salon rue des Moulins", 1894 painting by Toulouse-Lautrec, which represents women in a brothel :
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec/the-salon-in-the-rue-des-moulins-1894 -
Beginning of the "Spanish flu" pandemic
The influenza pandemic of 1918, which caused approximately 30 million deaths, was a true public health crisis, its spread made easier by improvements in communications between different regions of the globe and the First World War. "Self-portrait after Spanish influenza", a 1919 painting by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch who was one of the victims of the influenza pandemic, though he survived it :
http://www.abcgallery.com/M/munch/munch58.html
