It Isn’t the First Time
In 1772, Daniel
Dafoe wrote an alleged eye-witness account of the great Bubonic plague which ravaged
England in 1664 and 1665. In fact, he was just 5 years old at the time, so most
of the book, A Journal of the Plague Year is secondary sourced,
vice eyewitness. Told as a narrative by an imaginary Londoner, it was written to
be readable, and was successful in its time.
Closer to the
bone is the first person (ergo more accurate) A Diary of the Plague Year, which
consists of selections from the diary of Samuel Pepys. During the same pandemic,
Pepys, a 17th-century British naval administrator fastidiously kept a diary
from 1660 to 1669 – a period of time that included the same severe outbreak of
the bubonic plague in London.
Pepys wrote:
[1665-08-12] The people die so, that now it seems they
are fain to carry the dead to be buried by daylight, the nights not sufficing
to do it in. And my Lord Mayor commands people to be inside by nine at night
that the sick may leave their domestic prison for air and exercise.
And: [1665-08-31] Up, and after putting several
things in order to my removal to Woolwich, the plague having a great increase
this week beyond all expectation, of almost 2000 - making the general Bill
7000, odd 100 and the plague above 6000 .... Thus this month ends, with great
sadness upon the public through the greateness of the plague, everywhere
through the Kingdom almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase.
In the City died this week 7496; and all of them, 6102 of the plague. But it is
feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10000 - partly from
the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number,
and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for
them. As to myself, I am very well; only, in fear of the plague, and as much of
an Ague, by being forced to go early and late to Woolwich, and my family to lie
there continually.
In truth, there
was no singular plague which came and went never to resurface, but more like three
centuries of intermittent waves of diseases which ravaged Europe to varying
degrees from the 1300s to the Great Plagues (the Black Death/Bubonic Plague) which
ravaged European cities in the mid-1600s. Reconstructing from contemporaneous
records, such as survive, it is likely that multiple Italian cities had at
least 50% death figures!)
American parallels to this were played
out over several centuries and included:
1633-1634: Smallpox from European settlers (half the
population of Boston was infected and about 9% of the city died!)
1793: Yellow fever from the Caribbean (refugees
fleeing a yellow fever epidemic in the Caribbean Islands sailed into
Philadelphia, carrying the virus with them. Estimates of fatality range as high
as 10%. Others fled the city to avoid it, and did)
1832-1866: Cholera in three waves between 1832 and
1866. (the pandemic began in India and swiftly spread across the globe through
trade routes. New York City was the first U.S. city to feel the impact. Between
5 and 10 of the total population died in large cities.)
1918: H1N1 flu. (In 1918, it was the type of flu
behind the “Spanish” influenza pandemic, though it didn’t actually from come from
Spain. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people
– about a third of the world’s population at the time – in four successive
waves. Killing 50 million worldwide and 675,000 in the US.)
1921-1925: Diphtheria epidemic, peaking in 1921 with
206,000 cases.
So why the
history lesson? I guess it stems from my frustration from reading all the false
data and allegations related to the current pandemic. Looking backward at previous
global and/or continental pandemics, several factors emerge:
Etiology: the great plagues of the 1600s might as well
have been caused by lightning as far as anyone knew. The isolation of germs and
their relationship to disease causality was 200 years away. Even more distant
was the 1892 recognition of viruses, and, even then, they were not immediately identified
as causative factors in human disease.
Conversely, the
viral causative factor in the current pandemic was identified early on. It was
also immediately apparent that transmission reflected the type of contagion we
had seen 100 years earlier in the 1918 flu pandemic.
Response: Even though the agents of transmission were
a mystery and would remain so for some time, those who called themselves doctors
came to realize that no matter what was tried, it was futile, be it bleeding, purging,
or, for the Black Death, such “cures” as: 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 (yuck). Drinking vinegar, eating crushed minerals, arsenic,
mercury (a really bad idea!) or even ten-year-old treacle were other, also
useless, treatments.
About the same
time, smallpox treatment was almost as bizarre: Bloodletting (as much as 20
ounces at a time!), Purging (induced vomiting), Confinement to bed, no heat
allowed in the room, windows constantly open, bed clothes no higher than the waist.
Also prescribed was “12 bottles of small (low alcohol) beer, acidulated with
Spirit of Vitriol (diluted Sulfuric Acid!), every twenty-four hours.”
Yellow fever
treatment was simpler. You either died, or you didn’t. No one had yet identified the
mosquito as a disease vector. However, even that disease gave hints regarding
acquired immunity. In New Orleans, where yellow fever was frequently epidemic in
summers, White society evolved into two strata, those who had survived the
disease and were “acclimated” and those who were “unacclimated”. Rich whites
frequently went north of Lake Pontchartrain to (only slightly) higher and dryer
ground through the worst summer months, even though the mosquito as vector wouldn’t
be identified until 1900.
However, in
every single one of these, save the mosquito borne illnesses, one early
response was apparent – get away from those infected. Yeah, Social Distancing.
As early as the 1600s, Londoners who could afford to do so went to the country and
avoided crowds because, even though they had no idea what caused the plague, they
on some level, apparently invisible to a sizeable portion of US Conservatives,
realized that removing oneself from close contact with potentially infected
individuals was a good idea. Sadly, for poor Londoners (most of the population)
that simply wasn’t an option. Second, although less effective, don’t share
fluids with a sick individual, because their cooties can make you sick, Even
wear a mask!
It was in England
in 1665 during the Great Plague/Black Death that Cambridge University sent
students home as a precautionary measure. One of them returned to his family
estate 60 miles northwest of Cambridge, where he then thrived. The year 1666,
which he spent away from Cambridge at his family’s estate, is when and where Isaac
Newton began work on his discoveries in the fields of calculus, motion, optics
and gravitation. The mathematical papers he wrote during this time went on to
form the early foundations of calculus. He experimented with prisms, going so
far as to punch a hole in his shutters for a small light beam to come through.
This led to his theories in optics. Outside his window was ‘the apple tree’ that
(allegedly) led to the discovery of gravity. While Newton practiced Social Distancing,
100 miles to the southwest, a quarter of London’s population perished in the
Great Plagues of 1665 and 1666.
Treatment/prevention: While some early efforts at
treatment of pandemic communicable diseases seem like “witch doctor specials”
there were some who made several observations which laid the groundwork for later
immunological advances. One seemingly inexplicable statistic was that the urban rich
seemed to suffer and die in greater numbers from Smallpox than the poor in the
countryside. It was also common knowledge that survivors of smallpox became
immune to the disease. As early as 430 BCE, survivors of smallpox were called
upon to nurse the afflicted. Although the exact dates are unknown, it is now generally
accepted that variolation (the act of taking matter from an existing pox sore
and inducing it into another via small incision) was practiced in India and China
long before it was ever heard of in England. It came to the attention of the
Royal Society in London in a 1714 letter from a diplomat in Istanbul, but
English doctors were resistant to the idea.
In
1717, Lady Mary Montague's husband, Edward Wortley Montague, was appointed
ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. She had been facially disfigured by smallpox two
years earlier and upon hearing of variolation at the Ottoman court, asked that
her young son be variolated by the embassy surgeon. Although most of the world
reveres the name Edward Jenner as the “discoverer of vaccination” it was embassy
surgeon, Charles Maitland, who performed the first known immunological
procedure on a European, a 5-year-old boy, Lady Montague’s son. Returning to
England, Lady Montague became an advocate whose experience reached the royal
family. In 1722, Maitland was allowed to perform vaccination on six prisoners
all of whom became immune to smallpox.
In fact,
the first actual statistical analysis of the effects of variolation, was performed
in Boston, not England. When a ship with active smallpox cases landed in Boston
in 1721, Cotton Mather, a Harvard grad and interested in medicine although a pastor by vocation, recommended immediate variolation
of the entire populace. Some of the residents violently resisted and, in a prelude
to the incredibly ignorant anti-vaxx movement of today, a bomb was thrown at Mather’s
house. But, as the plague burnt out, analysis of the effects of variolation
showed that untreated citizens had a death rate 700% higher than those
who had been immunized. It is significant that this was accomplished with
scrapings from active smallpox victims.
It was English
doctor Edward Jenner who, in 1796, noted that milkmaids who contracted cowpox
(a minor rash generally limited to hands and arms and not fatal) were immune to
smallpox. On May 14, 1796, using scrapings from cowpox lesions, he inoculated
an 8-year-old boy, James Phipps. The lad developed very mild fever. Nine days
after the procedure he felt cold and had lost his appetite, but on the next day
he was much better. In July 1796, Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time
with matter from a fresh smallpox lesion. No disease developed, and Jenner
concluded that protection was complete Since this immunity was apparently obtained
from cowpox (Vacca is the Latin for cow) Jenner called his process of intentional
transmission “Vaccination.”
Yeah, I know,
that’s a lot of verbiage, so what? Well, Jethro, because what those early inoculators
discovered, although the reasons remained to be discovered, was the concept of acquired
immunity. While the vaccine delivered today is far more sophisticated and less likely
to cause side effects, the principle remains the same. All the plagues described
earlier are non-existent in most of the world where vaccination is common. If
travelling to regions less developed where Cholera or Yellow fever are still to
be found, vaccines are available.
Obviously,
Voodoo priestesses, pillow salesmen and Presidents notwithstanding, there is,
as of yet no curative for COVID 19. There are medically therapeutic treatments
for symptoms, but the only “cure” is don’t get sick, and by far the best way to
do that is remain masked and/or distanced until you can get the vaccine. That also
means, in plain speak, get vaccinated when possible or shut the hell up. Ignore
the science bashing gobbledy-gook and help relegate COVID 19 to the same status
as Smallpox. If you choose to still believe that vaccination is unwarranted,
look at the childhood measles clusters in those anti-vaxxer strongholds in Oregon,
where pre-public school vaccinations are not mandatory. (A 30 year high!) As of
Tuesday, April 23rd of last year, 680 cases of measles had been
reported in the U.S. This was the highest level of measles infections in 25
years, and the resurgence is largely attributed to misinformation turning
parents against vaccines, according to the Associated Press.
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