Pandemics and Epidemics

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  • Period: 450 BCE to 340 BCE

    Hippocratic Corpus Written

    A collection of around 60 medical texts from Ancient Greece. Provides a casual explanation of diseases and health mostly based on the four humors. Did not include anatomical information.
  • Period: 430 BCE to 425 BCE

    Plague of Athens

    An unknown epidemic in Athens.
  • Period: 384 BCE to 322 BCE

    Aristotle

    An Greek scholar dissects many different animals, but not humans, focusing on understanding anatomy rather than healing.
  • Period: 325 BCE to 255 BCE

    Herophilus

    A Greek physician and anatomist living in Alexandria, a major center for learning, preforming dissections and vivisections of humans.
  • Period: 315 BCE to 240 BCE

    Erasistratus

    A Greek physician and anatomist living in Alexandria, a major center for learning, preforming dissections and vivisections of humans.
  • Period: 129 to 216

    Galen of Pergamon

    A Roman and Greek physician, philosopher, and surgeon from the antiquity period, preforms dissections and vivisections on live animals believing in the importance of anatomy to understand and cure diseases. Writes extensively and later has his work complied to create the largest corpus of writings by any ancient Greek author.
  • Period: 165 to 180

    Antonine Plague

    An unknown epidemic in the Roman Empire thought to perhaps be smallpox through Galen's descriptions.
  • Period: 300 to 600

    Uroscopy Used as a Common Medieval Practice

    During the Byzantium era, uroscopy, or the study of urine, gains importance.
  • Period: 400 to 1000

    Hindered Learning in Medieval Europe

    Due to political turmoil, learning declines in Western Europe, but slowly recovers after 1000, reviving and translating ancient texts and establishing new centers of learning.
  • Period: 475 to 900

    Early Medieval Medicine

    Medieval medicine focuses on practical remedies and surgeries, expanding knowledge on subjects like medicinal plants, and revives ancient knowledge from Greek and Arabic, translating texts into Latin, the current language of learning, establishing a shared technical vocabulary.
  • Period: 541 to 549

    Plague of Justinian

    A plague epidemic in Europe. Historian Procopius of Caesarea notes the presence of a bubonic swelling in cases. Emperor Justinian falls ill but recovers.
  • Period: 1000 to

    The Royal Touch Treatment for Scrofula

    Rulers in France and Britain touch those with scrofula claiming that God heals them. Becomes known as the "King's Evil".
  • Period: 1000 to 1300

    Leprosy in Medieval Times

    Though leprosy had already been around for a long time, it enters historical records during Medieval times, affecting Europe and the Middle East. Thought to be contagious, lepers carry bells or clappers to announce themselves and are banned from many places and segregated to special hospitals. Lepers are seen as outcasts, punished for their sins, or discounting their time in purgatory.
  • Period: 1100 to 1563

    Red Treatment for Smallpox

    Wearing the color red is thought to be effective against smallpox. Queen Elizabeth I of England is the last to use the red treatment.
  • Period: 1270 to 1326

    Mondino de Luzzi

    An Italian physician, anatomist, surgeon, and professor at the University of Bologna uses cadavers for anatomical lessons and his texts become teaching manuals for universities for over two centuries. Dissects bodies during the winter to find the cause of death.
  • Period: 1346 to 1353

    Black Death

    A bubonic plague pandemic in Europe, Asia, and North America.
  • 1450

    Printing Press Invented

    Johannes Gutenberg invents the printing press with movable characters in Mainz, Germany.
  • Period: 1450 to

    The Renaissance

    A revival of ancient knowledge, especially from places like Greece, and a rise of jobs like artisans, surgeons, and artists.
  • 1453

    Fall of the Byzantine Empire

    Greek Scholars flee West, taking with them manuscripts about ancient learning.
  • 1492

    Syphilis Spreads too Europe

    Columbus' crew brings syphilis back to Europe.
  • 1492

    Columbus' Voyage to the Americas

    Christopher Columbus travels to the Americas, spreading and bringing back new diseases, and begins the first global era with the Columbian Exchange. Many natives die due to smallpox on their virgin soil.
  • 1495

    Syphilis Epidemic in Naples

    A French invasion creates an outbreak of Syphilis
  • 1517

    The Reformation

    A break of religious unity in Europe, affecting the study of nature.

  • London Bills of Mortality

    Weekly bill showing how many people died and their causes of death.

  • Quinine Treatment for Malaria

    Bark from cinchona trees containing quinine in Peru reaches Europe as a remedy for malaria thanks to Johannes de Lugo.

  • First Yellow Fever Epidemic in the New World

    The first documented yellow fever outbreak of the New World occurs in Barbados.

  • Cooling Treatment for Smallpox

    Thomas Sydenham tries to cool patients with air and drinks in contrast to the typical treatment of many disease which made patients sweat so they could expel the noxious matter.

  • Sepulchretum or Grave-yard Textbook Published

    Théophile Bonet collects and comments on hundreds of previously published autopsies.

  • Diseases of Workers Textbook Published

    Bernardino Ramazzini publishes a textbook associating over fifty different diseases to occupations.

  • Inoculation Spreads to the US

    Cotton Mather promotes inoculation and gets his son inoculated after his slave, Onesimus, shows him his scar from the procedure, but is mocked.

  • Inoculation Spreads

    Lady Montagu has her daughter inoculated by Charles Maitland. Princess Caroline of Wales inoculates six prisoners and six orphans before getting her own daughter inoculated.

  • Quantification of Disease and Medicine

    James Jurin of the Royal Society studies statistics to show that inoculation is safer than contracting smallpox naturally.

  • Smallpox Vaccine

    Edward Jenner discovers that becoming infected with cowpox makes people immune to smallpox. He injects cowpox pustule matter from a milkmaid into a boy, making him immune to smallpox.

  • Scrofula No Longer Seen as Separate Disease

    Before, scrofula and consumption or tuberculosis were seen as two different diseases with different symptoms, though both show similar lesions, but in different organs. Franciscus de le Воё Sylvius had realized this much prior.

  • Compulsory Vaccination for Smallpox in the US

    Massachusetts becomes the first state to have compulsory vaccination for smallpox.

  • Consumption Renamed to Tuberculosis

    Johann Lukas Schönlein coins the term tuberculosis because of the presence of tubercles.

  • Reform in London

    John Simon urges reform in many areas like water, food, and housing and shows infant vaccination to be valid mandatory policy for smallpox.

  • Broad Street Cholera Outbreak

    John Snow notices that Cholera affects the intestines, and not the lungs, suggesting that the disease is caused by contaminated water.

  • Bacteria Identified for Leprosy

    Gerhard Hansen identifies the bacterium,
    Mycobacterium leprae, responsible for leprosy, changing the name to Hansen's Disease. He infected a woman without consent to prove it was contagious.

  • Bacteria Identified for Anthrax

    Robert Koch identifies the bacterium, Bacillus anthracis, responsible for anthrax.

  • Bacteria Identified for Gonorrhea

    Albert Neisser identifies the bacterium, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, responsible for gonorrhea.

  • Bacteria Identified for Typhoid Fever

    Karl Joseph Ebert identifies the bacterium, Salmonella Typhi, responsible for typhoid fever.

  • Bacteria Identified for Avian Cholera

    Louis Pasteur identifies the bacterium, Pasteurella multocida, responsible for avian cholera.

  • Avian Cholera Vaccine

    Louis Pasteur develops an ineffective vaccine for avian cholera.

  • Parasite Identified for Malaria

    Charles Laveran identifies Plasmodium, a genus of eukaryotic parasites, responsible for malaria.

  • Anthrax Vaccine

    Louis Pasteur develops a vaccine for anthrax.

  • Bacteria Identified for Tuberculosis

    Robert Koch identifies the bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, responsible for tuberculosis.

  • Bacteria Identified for Diphtheria

    Edwin Klebs and Friedrich Löffler discover the bacterium, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, responsible for diphtheria.

  • Bacteria Identified for Cholera

    Robert Koch identifies the bacterium,
    Vibrio cholerae, responsible for cholera.

  • Bacteria Identified for Tetanus

    Arthur Nicolaier identifies the bacterium, Clostridium tetani, responsible for tetanus.

  • Bacteria Identified for Pneumonia

    Albert Fraenkel identifies the bacterium, Streptococcus pneumoniae, responsible for pneumonia.

  • Tuberculin Used to Treat Tuberculosis

    Robert Koch develops an ineffective treatment using tuberculin, which is later found to be useful to diagnose tuberculosis.

  • Bacteria Identified for the Plague

    Alexandre Yersin and Kitasato Shibasaburō identify the bacterium, Yersinia pestis, responsible for the plague.

  • Mosquitos Discovered to Spread Malaria

    Ronald Ross finds the malaria plasmodium in the stomachs of mosquitos.

  • Artificial Pneumothorax Treatment for Tuberculosis

    Carlo Forlanini develops artificial pneumothorax as a treatment for pulmonary tuberculosis.
  • Period: to

    San Francisco Plague

    A bubonic plague epidemic in San Francisco.

  • Yellow Fever Confirmed to be Transmitted by Mosquitos

    Carlos Finlay previously speculated that female mosquitos (Aedes aegypti) were responsible for the spread of yellow fever. Walter Reed confirms his theory.

  • Bacteria Identified for Syphilis

    Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffmann identify the bacterium, Treponema pallidum, responsible for the syphilis.

  • Jacobson v. Massachusetts

    A Supreme Court case stating the public good overrides a person's personal freedom to not get vaccinated for smallpox every five years.

  • Tuberculin Used to Diagnose Tuberculosis

    Clemens von Pirquet discovers that patients with tuberculosis that were injected with tuberculin have an allergic reaction.

  • Poliomyelitis Proved to be a Contagious Virus

    Karl Landsteiner and Erwin Popper filter and remove all bacteria from a spinal cord of a sick patient and infect a monkey.

  • Salvarsan Discovered as an Effective Treatment for Syphilis

    Sahachiro Hata and Paul Ehrlich find that compound 606 to be partially effective against syphilis, but very toxic and hard to administer.

  • Pyrotherapy Treatment for Tertiary Syphilis is Discovered

    Julius Wagner-Jauregg finds that high fevers can help with neurosyphilis, injecting patients with malaria and curing them with quinine.
  • Period: to

    Spanish Flu

    A global influenza pandemic.

  • Penicillin Discovered to be Antibacterial

    Alexander Fleming discovers the antibacterial properties of penicillium mold.

  • Virus Identified for Swine Flu and Spanish Flu

    Richard Shope identifies the virus, Alphainfluenzavirus influenzae, responsible for swine flu, later finding that it was closely related to the 1918 human influenza.

  • Prontosil Treatment for Streptococcal

    Gerhard Domagk finds Prontosil to be an effective antibacterial treatment for streptococcal.

  • More Than One Type of Poliovirus

    Jean Macnamara and Macfarlane Burnet discover three different types of poliovirus, all needing different treatments.
  • Period: to

    Tuskegee Study

    The US Public Health Service and Center for Disease Control conducts an unethical and racist clinical study on the effects of untreated syphilis on African-American males in Alabama.

  • Yellow Fever Vaccine

    Max Theiler confirms that the causative agent is a virus smaller than any bacteria and develops an effective vaccine.

  • Penicillin Concentrated and Produced

    Howard Florey and his team purify and produce large amounts of penicillin that proved to effective against many infections, but not all.

  • Streptomycin Treatment for Tuberculosis

    Albert Schatz discovers streptomycin to be antibacterial against many different bacteria, including tuberculosis.

  • Para-Salicylic Acid Treatment for Tuberculosis

    Jörgen Lehmann discovers that salicylic acid stimulates the growth of tuberculosis bacterium and finds para-salicylic acid to be an effective antagonist to salicylic acid.

  • Salk Polio Vaccine

    Jonas Salk develops a vaccine using the inactive virus and requiring booster injections.

  • Sabin Polio Vaccine

    Albert Sabin develops an oral vaccine using a weaken virus that does not require booster doses.
  • Period: to

    WHO Smallpox Eradication Campaign

    Using a freeze-dried serum and the bifurcated needle, many more people could be vaccinated with less serum.

  • Artemisinin Discovered as an Effective Treatment for Malaria

    Tu Youyou finds that artemisinin from the sweet wormwood plant to be an effective remedy for malaria.
  • Period: to

    HIV/AIDS Pandemic

    An ongoing global pandemic of HIV/AIDS.

  • Virus Identified for HIV/AIDS

    Luc Montagnier and Françoise Barré-Sinouissi discover a retrovirus, part of the Lentivirus genus, responsible for HIV/AIDS
  • Period: to

    WHO American Polio Eradication Campaign

    The American Branch of WHO launches a campaign to eradicate polio by 1990, which was not met. The American continent is declared polio free in 1994.

  • Europe Eradicates Polio

    WHO declares Europe to be polio free.

  • U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

    Anthony Fauci sets up a global program for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, and research.

  • Klaassen v. The Trustees of Indiana University

    A case of students challenging the mandate of the COVID-19 vaccine, masking, testing, and social distancing loses after Jacobson v. Massachusetts is invoked.