Pandemics and their co-factors: A short history

Abstract

This chapter reviews the history of pandemics from antiquity to the present. Recognized pandemics include plague, cholera, smallpox, infuenza and, more recently, HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. Also discussed are the thousands of years of recognition, much of it vague, of the germ theory and the possibility that novel epidemics and even pandemics may emerge as the result of changes in the Anthropocene, including biodiversity loss, the farming of familiar and novel species, and emerging laboratory techniques. Show more