10 Worst Epidemics : Discovery Channel - 7 views
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This engraving from 1656 depicts a plague doctor in protective clothing and mask.
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jh4017 on 30 Apr 14What's on the doctor nose?
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Malaria isn't new to the world of epidemic diseases. Records of its impact on human populations date back more than 4,000 years, when Greek writers noted its ravaging effects. Accounts of the mosquito-born illness pop up in ancient Indian and Chinese medical texts. Even then, scientists made the vital connections between the illness and the still waters where mosquitoes breed.
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Wartime soldiers of the past often experienced great losses to malaria. In the American Civil War alone, 1,316,000 men reportedly suffered from the illness and 10,000 died. During World War I, malaria immobilized British, French and German forces for three years. Nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers died from the disease in Africa and the South Pacific during World War II [source: Malaria Site].
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If these illness where not there during the war how could it affected the outcome.
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Tuberculosis (TB) has ravaged human populations throughout recorded history. Ancient texts detail the manner in which its victims waste away, and DNA evidence of the disease was even discovered in Egyptian mummies.
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When French emperor Napoleon sent an army of 33,000 to French landholdings in North America, yellow fever killed 29,000 of those soldiers. Napoleon was so shocked by the number of casualties that he decided the territory wasn't worth the risk of further losses. France sold the land to the United States in 1803; an event which would go down in history as the Louisiana Purchase [source:Yount].
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epidemic typhus.
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