AN EPIDEMIC is a disease that affects a large number of people within a community, population, or region. A PANDEMIC is an epidemic that’s spread over multiple countries or continents.

Influenza, commonly called “the flu”, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses….

(ĭn′flo͞o-ĕn′zə) 1. An acute contagious viral infection of humans, characterized by inflammation of the respiratory tract and by fever, chills, muscular pain, and prostration. Also called grippe.

Influenza, also called flu or grippe, an acute viral infection of the upper or lower respiratory tract that is marked by fever, chills, and a generalized feeling of weakness and pain in the muscles, together with varying degrees of soreness in the head and abdomen.

Origin of Influenza Influenza comes to English from Italian, where it derived from the Medieval Latin word influentia. Both etyma translate to “influence” in their respective languages, an allusion to how the disease was traditionally attributed to the influence of the stars.

Some of the cures they tried included: Rubbing onions, herbs or a chopped up snake (if available) on the boils or cutting up a pigeon and rubbing it over an infected body. Drinking vinegar, eating crushed minerals, arsenic, mercury or even ten-year-old treacle!

Antibiotics such as streptomycin, gentamicin, doxycycline, or ciprofloxacin are used to treat plague. Oxygen, intravenous fluids, and respiratory support are usually also needed.

Some plague doctors wore a special costume consisting of an ankle-length overcoat and a bird-like beak mask, often filled with sweet or strong-smelling substances (commonly lavender), along with gloves, boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and an outer over-clothing garment.

Plague doctors wore a mask with a bird-like beak to protect them from being infected by deadly diseases such as the Black Death, which they believed was airborne.

The clothing worn by plague doctors was intended to protect them from airborne diseases during outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague in Europe. However, the costume was worn by a comparatively small number of medieval and early modern physicians studying and treating plague patients.

Skeletons buried deep beneath a square in London yield information about how one of history’s deadliest plagues spread through 14th-century Britain.

The Black Death was an epidemic which ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1400. It was a disease spread through contact with animals (zoonosis), basically through fleas and other rat parasites (at that time, rats often coexisted with humans, thus allowing the disease to spread so quickly).

Bubonic plague is the most common form and is characterized by painful swollen lymph nodes or ‘buboes’. Plague is transmitted between animals and humans by the bite of infected fleas, direct contact with infected tissues, and inhalation of infected respiratory droplets.

The difference between the forms of plague is the location of infection; in pneumonic plague the infection is in the lungs, in bubonic plague the lymph nodes, and in septicemic plague within the blood.

Pneumonic plague is the rarest, but most severe form of the disease. It is 100 percent fatal if not treated rapidly and is deadly in up to half of all cases, even with prompt antibiotic treatment. Untreated cases of bubonic or septicemic plague can become pneumonic plague as infection spreads to the lungs.