Exploring Nature: Pathogens

When I think of dangerous animals and life-threatening diseases, I tend to consider lions, tigers and sharks for the animals and cancer for the disease. In truth, it’s not big animals we need to fear most, it’s tiny ones, like ticks, fleas and mosquitoes. And various plagues down through the ages have killed more people than any other single cause. Back in 165 A. D., soldiers returning to Europe from the Near East carried a virus causing smallpox. It ravaged a generation and killed five million people. In 542, bubonic plague, carried by fleas on rats, killed about 20 million people in Asia, North Africa, Arabia and Europe.

In 1347 to 1352, a recurring bubonic plague created a deadly worldwide pandemic, as the “Black Death” wiped out some 25 million lives. Death came to the New World in 1519 when European explorers — including Christopher Columbus’ brother — came into contact with welcoming Taino natives. The resulting smallpox epidemic killed almost eight million natives.

Natives in Massachusetts were particularly hard hit and between 1616 and 1619, the newly-arriving virus wiped out about 90% of the never-before-exposed Indians in that area.

One of the deadliest epidemics ever occurred from 1918 through 1919 as influenza killed a whopping 50 million people in the U.S. alone.

Of course, the deadliest current event is the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, about five million people have expired and the pandemic is still going strong.

On the bright side, there is an effective vaccine and given enough shots, we should achieve “herd immunity.” I sure hope so.