Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #10plagues
Most recents (4)
So far our #10plagues have included lifestock pestilence & swarms of 🦟. In Exodus, the third plague brings the humble louse—bearer of typhus, a mostly forgotten disease. But "war fever" haunted the (early) modern military state, from armies + jails to borders + refugee camps. 1/ 
Typhus (not to be confused with typhoid) is the work of Rickettsia bacteria, named for a scientist they killed. Its epidemic form travels in đź’© of the body louse, which eats only human blood. Meaning "hazy", typhus brings spots, fingertip gangrene +a delirious "besotted" look. 2/
When they’ve actually noticed it, scholars have depicted "General Typhus" as the world's greatest military leader, nemesis of Charles V and Napoleon. But typhus undermines that portrait gallery view of history. It was a disease of squalor, unhappy crowds, and state violence. 3/
Our second plague is an #envhist classic: yellow fever. The great disease of the transatlantic slave trade, it was a key symptom of our entry into a new, environmentally ruinous era of commodification and homogenization—what some have called the “Plantationocene" #10plagues (1/n)
Yellow fever is a mosquito-borne virus native to tropical West Africa. Many get a mild case. But a minority become jaundiced and develop haemorrhagic fever—giving the disease one of its charming 150+ nicknames, vómito negro. 50% of C19th victims died, screaming in agony (2/n)
“Can the mosquito speak?” asked Timothy Mitchell. He meant the malarial Anopheles. But another 🦟 exercised equal agency: Aedes aegypti. The female prefers to bite humans and relishes city living. She brought yellow fever out of jungle primates to produce urban epidemics (3/n)
New lockdown hobby: perusing the #envhist of pandemics. In honour of Passover, first up is Rinderpest—likely one of the 10 biblical plagues. This nasty little pathogen killed huge numbers of cattle, buffalo, and other cloven-hoofers across Asia, Africa and Europe #10plagues (1/n)
Rinderpest also likely gave us the measles virus, which became endemic around C11th as human-cattle interactions intensified. Between 1855–2005, measles would kill c. 200 million people worldwide. As late as 2018, 140,000+ died thanks to plateauing vaccination levels (2/n)
Rinderpest had major political effects. The cattle plague of AD376–386, spread by Hun invasions, has been linked to the fall of the Roman Empire. In English it was known as “Steppe murrain”, spread by the Mongols. Folklore claims Genghis Khan used it as a biological weapon (3/n)
Sobering report. Standard epidemiological protocol: Isolate virus; contact-tracing & testing of ppl; Quarantine infected #Coronavirus must be seen in terms of State Capacity & Public Health axis. Pointless along authoritarian-democratic axis when set of things done is similar.
Global Cooperation between virologists, health workers thru WHO & China's & US CDC has been a shining example to humanity. Important to take a step back and remember that we are in a forever war w microbes. Many more of them than us... #coronavirus
Fantastic resource: interactive map of #coronavirus infections and deaths around the world. Data from CDCs/WHO.
Created by Center for Systems Science & Engineering, John Hopkins. Updated daily.
gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashbo…
Created by Center for Systems Science & Engineering, John Hopkins. Updated daily.
gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashbo…
