Hello everyone,
With what's happening around COVID-19/Coronavirus/SARS-COV-2 continuing to occupy quite a lot of minds, we have noticed a decided uptick in questions related to pandemics and how they have been responded to historically. We already have a previous recent megathread on the topic with some great answers; I suspect this one won't be the last!
As with previous Megathreads, keep in mind that like an AMA, top level posts should be questions in their own right. However, while we do have flairs with specialities related to this topic, we do not have a dedicated panel on this topic, so anyone can answer the questions, as long as that answer meets our standards of course (see here for an explanation of our rules)!
Additionally, this thread is for historical, pre-2000, questions about pandemics, so we ask that discussion or debate about current responses to COVID-19 be directed to a more appropriate sub, as they will be removed from here.
From our perspective as historians, we feel it is important to stress that we can learn history, but we cannot learn simple lessons from it. Sure, history can teach some things by example that science can teach by experiment, like the merits of quarantine. But when we look at the big picture stuff, that notion goes out the window.
Fundamental to the modern study of history is the concept of difference, which the 19th century German historian Leopold Ranke famously expressed with the words "every age is immediate to God." What that means is that every historical event, process, society and system must be understood on its own terms. Everything has a unique context and must develop in ways that are specific to that context. The American, French and Russian Revolutions are all political revolutions, but their causes, course and consequences are completely different; how would we determine on the basis of these examples "what happens in a revolution"? As Max Weber argued, when we generalise about historical phenomena like "feudalism" or "family" or "revolution" or "pandemic" we are not observing the universal laws of history at work but creating patterns out of random facts by applying the conceptual frameworks we are interested in. This effort to make sense of things is important, but it has limits. If we are too eager to make many things into examples of one Thing, we're likely to gloss over crucial differences. If we look too hard for similar causes and outcomes we will be up to our necks in onfirmation bias, ignoring what the sources are really telling us.
What this means in practice is that historians usually don't presume to know what the next X will look like based on past examples of X. Too much depends on a context that has never been seen before. At the same time, too much of what we know about past cases depends on factors that were only relevant in those cases and do not apply in the here and now. Trying to separate the generally applicable from the unique and contingent is often simply not possible. Unfortunately, the extent to which the Plague of Athens, the Black Death and the Spanish Flu can teach us about the development and long-term effects of a pandemic in the modern world is extremely limited.
That said, people in the ancient world or the early modern world are still recognisably people, and we can recognise parts of ourselves in them. While we can't easily extrapolate from historical events to the present, it can be useful to look at the past as a guide to what about a current situation is uniquely 2020 and what is shared with other events. History is the story of us. We experience time as a progression of events; we come to perceive that there was a time before us. That people lived before us, some of whom we know, others that are strange. Our world is built on the things that they have said and done, and their story is our story. It is a story we want to know. Not necessarily for any particular practical purpose, although there can be practical applications of historical research and analysis, but because we want to know more about ourselves, how we and our world became as we are.
Was there hoarding and panic buying in the US during the Spanish flu? Did rationing and censorship have an effect on hoarding and panic buying?
What can average people do to aid future historians in their study of the COVID-19 pandemic? Feel free to state the obvious, since what is obvious to one person might not be obvious to others, but I'm especially interested in things that most people won't have thought of, which professional historians are more likely to think of because of their background.
Once it became popularly known as the "Spanish Flu," did we see Americans commit hate crimes towards Spaniards or Latin people? Were their calls for banning immigration and/or visitors from Spain? Did any local media or politicians try to stir up anti-Spanish or anti-Latin sentiment in the U.S.?
What is the history, if any, of disease denialism? I'm thinking broadly: denials that the disease exists or is present in the population at all, and also claims that, while acknowledging that the disease exists, allege that public reactions to the disease are extreme overreactions.
I'm less interested in the obviously related issues of blaming diseases on particular subpopulations or conspiracies about diseases being deliberate attacks--those are arguments that I'm at least somewhat familiar with. But I'm struck by the presence of outright denialism, which is not something I can think of an historical parallel for.
What were the long term effects of the 1919 pandemic? Aside from the obvious massive loss of life were there any cultural shift afterwards such as people being afraid to congregate, more bathing, more caution about person to person contact? Also did the Spanish face any discrimination issues like Asians are today? I know it didn’t start there but that was the general belief at the time.
During the Bubonic Plague, did they close churches? If not, how did gathering for worship contribute to the spread of disease?
Were there any Bubonic Plague deniers? If so, do we know how common they were, and what impact they may have had on the spread of the disease?
How long did it take for things to go totally back to "normal" after the 1918 pandemic?
Around a century ago, we had a very nasty international plague in the Spanish Flu. I was wondering, are there any recordings of plague- or quarantine-related songs from that era? I know audio recording was in its infancy back then, but I'm still hoping for something to fit the COVID-19 mood.
Did the Black Death mutate? People in different areas had different symptoms.
…The symptoms were not the same as in the East, where a gush of blood from the nose was the plain sign of inevitable death; but it began both in men and women with certain swellings in the groin or under the armpit. They grew to the size of a small apple or an egg, more or less, and were vulgarly called tumours. In a short space of time these tumours spread from the two parts named all over the body. Soon after this the symptoms changed and black or purple spots appeared on the arms or thighs or any other part of the body, sometimes a few large ones, sometimes many little ones. These spots were a certain sign of death, just as the original tumour had been and still remained…No doctor's advice, no medicine could overcome or alleviate this disease, An enormous number of ignorant men and women set up as doctors in addition to those who were trained. Either the disease was such that no treatment was possible or the doctors were so ignorant that they did not know what caused it, and consequently could not administer the proper remedy. In any case very few recovered; most people died within about three days of the appearance of the tumours described above, most of them without any fever or other symptoms…
Source: Giovanni Boccaccio, “Black Death” 1348
We know that different cities took different approaches to dealing with the Spanish Flu, with varying effect on mortality rates. But do we have any records of how these decisions were reached? How did people think about balancing containment measures and continuing business as usual?
Given the late 19th century temperance movement's goals of shutting down pubs and places where people congregated to consume alcohol did the Spanish Flu, which resulted in government lockdowns on movement and congregation, gain a boost from this lockdown? Was more alcohol consumed per capita as a result of lockdowns?
Iirc 1901 was the year germs were confirmed to exist. How was this new knowledge applied to make quarantining and medical treatment more effective?
Considering every pandemic we have knowledge of, what have been the permanent consequences of their passage in the civilizations they affected? What existed, or ceased to be, before and after their passage? If i were to think at it as a layman, societal structure and political power were barely touched before and after such terrible death tolls, but I don't think it could be right...
Can anyone provide me with a good “starter pack” of books to read about historical diseases and pandemics while I’m in quarantine?
Art history question: what are some of the most significant paintings or sculptures from history that were about pandemics?
Shot in the dark question: What material(s) were medical/surgical masks likely made out of in the mid-20th Century? The war efforts in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam obviously increased demand for the US, and now with the increasing private effort to produce masks for medical and private use I’ve noticed a mix of flannel and cotton is being mentioned. Google, however, only gives me recent articles and locked medical journals, and I’m unable to start perusing PBS documentaries at the moment.
When was the last time the United States was hit by a pandemic on the level/type of the coronavirus? The best I’ve been able to find is a polio outbreak in the 1950s. AIDS is too much of a different animal to qualify under my “type” qualifier.
Several times these past two weeks, I’ve seen articles about discrepancies between reported death rates and actual death rates. I’m starting to think we’ll only know how many people died when the historians get to it. Which brings me to my question: how do historians calculate how many people died from a given pandemic?
What factors made the Spanish flu so deadly? Were there fears of a similar outbreak after ww2? Were any measures taken to prevent this?
During this pandemic we have the wonders of the internet to keep physically distant while having the opportunity to stay socially engaged. How did they deal with the mandate to effectively socially distance about 100 years ago during the H1N1 flu pandemic? Was there an influx of new radio programming? Was there a spike in amateur radio users?