Pandemic Pasts. Experiences from History

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic is not the first time that humanity is confronted with a sudden and lethal global disease threat. This chapter discusses previous lethal pandemics in human history. Examples of the Black Death in the fourteenth century, the cholera pandemics in the nineteenth century, and the Spanish flu in the twentieth century show that not only millions of people have died but that these scourges have also led to significant changes in society and culture. From these examples, patterns in the manifestations of epidemic diseases and in the responses to them are identified and examined. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.