This article considers the “Plague of Justinian” from the perspective of a person living for over a year in a situation of epidemiological threat, constantly “bombarded” in the media with a diversity of information relating to all aspects of the COVID 19 pandemic, including non-medical ones. The plague that erupted in the Byzantine Empire in the XVth year of the reign of the Emperor Justinian (541/542 CE) can certainly be seen as a pandemic. Between 541 and 750, one can note as many as eighteen waves of plague. From written records and on the basis of admittedly only partial archaeological data, we know that the plague affected the entire population of the Byzantine Empire, the barbarian kingdoms in the West, but also neighbouring lands: Ireland, Scandinavia, and Germany. IT very likely also reached lands to the east of the Oder. The article describes the causes and circumstances of the appearance of plague in the Byzantine Empire, its symptoms, its spread, ways of combatting it, and its consequences (including social and economic consequences). The article also attempts to estimate the number of victims of the epidemic in Byzantium.

This article analyzes texts that show attempts to resist the plague epidemic in Europe in the second half of the XIVth century. Much information on this subject has survived in writings by Italian authors, including Giovanni Boccaccio, Matteo Villani, and Francesco Petrarch. In Italian cities, the sickness led to demographic disaster, permanently changing the social order and the daily life of their inhabitants. Using the above mentioned texts, the author reflects on the triumphal march of the plague, searching for answers to the question as to the extent to which contemporary doctors were responsible for the state of affairs. When they encountered the first attack of the plague, they were helpless, not possessing either appropriate knowledge of medicines. Authors of chronicles noted that when examining the sick, doctors only took simple steps such as measuring temperature and analyzing body fluids, and the drew on philosophy and astrology when doing so. Sharper and sharper criticism fell on their heads as a result, and accusations not just of ignorance but also of cowardice. This was because many medical persons fled from territories affected by plague. Francesco Petrarch was one of the fiercest critics of doctors at this time. In the course of the epidemic, he lost Laura, the love of his life, and his beloved son. Petrarch wrote of the plague and the death that accompanied it in several tracts and poetic pieces. In those, he showed the fear and terror that haunted people when the world they had hitherto known lay in ruins.

Although the medieval plague epidemic had a global impact, its intensity varied from region to region in Europe. Plague rates as well as mortality rates were conditioned by climatic and geographical conditions, population density, migration, and trade activities, as well as nutritional opportunities and mental or cultural habits. If we look at Europe as a whole, then the Czech lands, the Bohemian Kingdom and the Moravian Margraviate were among the areas affected by plague epidemics in the XIVth and XVth centuries much less than medieval France, England, Italy, or the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire. The causes of the lower intensity of the plague epidemic in Bohemia and Moravia can be seen in all of the aspects mentioned above, which does not, however, mean that the impact of the plague epidemic in the Kingdom of Bohemia was not, in some regards, comparable to that in Western Europe. Research on the medieval plague epidemic in Bohemia and Moravia has struggled with a lack of relevant sources from the very beginning. The limited explanatory power of the sources has also influenced the limited interest of Czech historians in this topic. The only debate that was ever conducted about the impact of the plague epidemic in a Czech intellectual milieu concerned its possible influence on the outbreak of the Hussite revolution, or the degree of the intensity of the plague in 1380. This debate quite clearly led to the conclusion that in plague epidemics, or in their impact on pre-Hussite society, it is not possible to see a significant or even decisive cause of the outbreak of the Hussite revolution.

The author raises the question of the causes of the death of Jan Žižka (1360–1424), Czech national hero and one of the most able leaders of the Hussite revolution between 1419 and 1424. Žižka died suddenly, after a brief illness during the Moravian campaign in October 1424. The illness had symptoms and a course indicating bubonic plague, which from the mid XIVth century assailed the Czech lands, Moravia, and Silesia, as is confirmed by XVth-century and XVIth-century sources, including the Staré letopisy české and the chronicle of Eneasz Sylwiusz Piccolomini. In the XIXth century, this diagnosis was questioned in favour of a severe skin complaint, which produced cluster boils or carbuncles. Because no mortal remains of Žižka have survived, a genetic analysis of bone material is impossible that would establish the presence of plague-causing Yersinia pestis bacteria. Thus, the problem remains to the present in the sphere of hypotheses and discussion. This article is a contribution to the debate.

Hussitism regarded as heresy was perceived in terms of a disease in the healthy body of the Church. In particular, raids by Hussite troops were interpreted in the category of madness, as furor Hussitarum. However, the Hussite side also saw controversies regarding health issues. John of Borotín, a physician and Utraquist, made a long-distance diagnosis of the psychiatric condition of his Hussite adversary, John of Capistrano. Reformist radicals considered the principles of the Anointing of the Sick and pondered whether the rite was a sacrament or not. Although medical and health allusions were not the main rhetorical tool used in the religious disputes, such examples can be found there

In all early-modern Europe, epidemics were a very frequent phenomenon. In the XVth and XVIth centuries, the one effective way of avoiding the danger of infection and near certain death was to flee from a place threatened by plague. In the XVth century, a quite short journey was often sufficient, or else monarchs decided right away on a distant journey to the less-populated Lithuania, attempting to turn this to use in terms of the system of using royal progresses as a way of exercising power. In the XVIth century, especially in the second half, only one move to even a distant locality was insufficient, and the king and members of his family were compelled to move to a succession of places. Kings and their families almost always spent a period of isolation on their own estates. There were exceptions when the ruler was able to enjoy the hospitality of magnate or church estates. Through the nearly two hundred years of Jagiellonian rule, there is only one case (in 1572) when one can see the incautious behavior of the court as contributing to spread of plague. Although in the XVth century one can still find traces of real fear of pestilence among the royals and dramatic descriptions of huge, often exaggerated, losses of population, in the next century an outbreak of plague is seen rather as a passing inconvenience in life, cause of bothersome confusions in the normal functioning of the state or of changes in the royal family’s plans.

This article aims to analyze narrative material recorded in Prussian and Pommeranian towns in the course of an epidemic of syphilis and smallpox in 1527 and of English sweats in 1529 (chroniclers’ accounts and letters). The point of departure is the extensive and detailed description contained in the Preuβische Chronik by the Gdańsk chronicler Simon Grunau. To test its credibility, the information it contains is compared with other current accounts on the subject of the course of the epidemics. Hitherto the epidemics of 1527 and 1529 have not aroused the interest of scholars writing about Prussia and Pomerania. The author of this article has collected manuscripts and printed source material, which is included in an annex. The article analyzes: the reactions to the appearance of sickness on the part of city authorities noted by chroniclers (including, Simon Grunau, Thomas Kantzow, and Johannes von Freiberg) and of the inhabitants of Szczecin, Gdańsk, Königsberg, Toruń, and Elbląg; descriptions of the remedial measures proposed; and interpretations of the ways the sicknesses spread among people and domestic animals. The article compares these with accounts surviving in contemporary letters, including those of Martin Luther, Prussian Duke Albrecht Hohenzollern, and Philip Melanchthon; it also considers accounts from the extensive medical writing preserved in old printed texts. An analysis of the epidemic of 1527 makes it possible to identify several diseases (smallpox and bird flu) that chroniclers identify with syphilis. The surviving accounts of witnesses point to convergent reactions of people to new illnesses with those observed today.

The plagues that appeared cyclically and with a relatively high frequency were for the urban communities of the Middle Ages and the early modern era an experience almost permanently inscribed in everyday life. As part of the struggle against epidemics, in addition to administrative measures taken by the authorities, there began to appear from the end of the XVth century anti-epidemic compendia edited by city physicians (thus medical persons with university education) and intended for a wider audience; they became especially popular in the German cultural area during the XVIth century. It was no different in Gdańsk (Danzig), wherea high level of medicine, and the practice of employing as city physicians well-educated medical persons (from German and Protestant universities) by the city authorities, resulted in the publication of numerous prints of this type. In total, in the years 1508−1588 in Gdańsk (Danzig) seven compendiums of this type were published. They contained general recommendations for protection against plague based on Galen’s medical system relating to the so-called six unnatural things (res non naturales); they were part of a trend of popular medical literature containing “rules of health” (regimen sanitatis). The recommendations contained in the prints by Gdańsk (Danzig) city physicians of the XVIth century concerned, therefore, the preservation of unpolluted air in the city, taking sanitary measures, proper diet and physical condition, as well as “surgical” treatments (taking baths in a bathhouse, using laxatives, phlebotomy), and pharmacological care (they were also supervisors of the city pharmacy at that time). These recommendations, however, were not practical advice (contrary to their titles) that could be fully applied in a time of plague; rather, they represented the state of academic medical knowledge of that time and were only a manifestation of its popularization resulting from the medical personnel’s duties. A separate place was found for considerations on a kind of “medical theology”, related to the commonly shared view that the cause of the epidemic was divine anger interpreted as a punishment for sins. This was of particular importance in the confessional order (with a Lutheran dominant) that was taking shape in Gdańsk (Danzig) during the XVIth century.

The article presents selected sources concerning the dates of occurrence and the number of victims of the epidemics in Gdańsk in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Among the sources are the data published by the municipal authorities of that time and early modern chronicles. They are juxtaposed with modern historical research. On this basis, the periods when Gdańsk was afflicted by plagues are determined with a high degree of probability and erroneous information that has been hitherto used the literature on the subject is indicated.

This article aims to analyze the traces of the pestilence in Wadowice in Małopolska up to 1772, when the town became part of the Austrian partition. Hitherto this topic has only been mentioned in the literature. Thanks to a use of sources from the period, and, above all, archives in, for example, the Archiwum Parafialnym Bazyliki Ofiarowania Najświętszej Marii Panny w Wadowicach and in the Archiwum Kurii Metropolitalnej w Krakowie, the author has discovered traces of the appearance of large-scale epidemics in Wadowice in 1585, 1601, 1652–1653, and probably in 1737, 1752, and 1758. In the Wadowice records of deaths (Liber Mortuorum), it has been possible to identify entries that would indicate the appearance of at least local epidemics in the period 1730–1772. In addition, a hitherto unknown note by the local pastor from 1756 has been found, which provides information about epidemics in the town in the XVIIth century and of their avoidance at the time of pestilence raging over large areas of the Polish Commonwealth and beyond its borders between 1708 and 1709. This source, published as an annex to the article, also shows the approaches of the inhabitants of Wadowice to the plague, which were typical of the period, and included: dedicating the town to the Mother of God, and the conviction that the misfortunes falling on the town, such as epidemics or fires, were a punishment for sins. The article ends with a recommendation in the future to carry out comparative research that makes it possible to compare the results from Wadowice with those from other towns in the western part of Małopolska.

In the early modern period, in various European countries, both Roman Catholics and Protestants provoked a new version of an old myth of “manmade pestilence”. The myth originated in Antiquity, and the term pestilentia manufacta was coined by Seneca in his “De Ira”. Yet, it was only the XVIth century that it started to evolve and rapidly spread throughout Europe. The myth provoked plague-inspired hatred and persecution that was aimed against people from different social echelons. Generally, the persecuted were the poor employed by local authorities as “low functionaries” during epidemics, above all, gravediggers. Nevertheless, priests, barber-surgeons, and merchants could also be considered plague-spreaders or plague-smearers. This article examines selected cases of presumed plague spreading in Western European cities in the XVIth and XVIIth centuries and three cases from XVIIIth century Poland, two of which have so far been unknown to scholars.

The epidemic of plague in Stockholm between 1710 and 1711 was part of a great pandemic that devastated Eastern, Central, and Northern Europe in the first decade of the century and, at the same time, was the greatest demographic catastrophe in the history of the Swedish capital, as a result of which around 40% of the city’s population died. The first cases of plague appeared at the start of 1710; the peak of infections and deaths was in the autumn (October and November); in winter, the disease lessened and the last cases occurred in February 1711. It is estimated that the number of deaths reached 22,000. The suburbs and the poorest districts suffered most. Scarcity and famine, which struck Sweden at the end of the first decade of the XVIIIth century, fostered the rapid spread of the disease in the city and the high rate of mortality. The plague was also fostered by the effects of the war conducted by Charles XII and, particularly, the defeats suffered by the Swedish army and the seizure of the Baltic provinces by Peter the Great, which led to migrations from already plague-infected regions and worsened the already poor sanitary conditions in the city. Refugees from Estonia probably brought the plague to Stockholm.

The Swedish authorities undertook measures against any epidemic as early as 1708 after receiving information about the spread of plague on the northern shores of the Baltic. These were limited to monitoring the movement of population. In 1709, quarantine was introduced for arrivals. After the first cases of plague in Stockholm regulations concerning people’s movements were made more strict, epidemic services were set up, and sanitary and public order directives were issued. Announcement of the plague was delayed until mid-September, when the number of deaths rose hugely, and it was obvious that the authorities were not in a position to control the spread of the epidemic. The city was closed, an ordinance against plague was issued regulating especially issues connected with health certificates, travel restrictions, maintaining cleanliness in houses and on the streets, compulsory registration and isolation of the sick, organization of interments, and the use of disinfectants and medicines. The reaction of the Stockholm authorities to the appearance of plague in the city reflected the actions of other Baltic cities struggling with plague at the same time.

Cholera and COVID-10 are two different diseases that have spread across the globe from Asia. The former is caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae, while the second is caused by a virus belonging to the corona virus group. Despite the differences in their course and treatment, one can find similarities in epidemic prevention measures imposed in the XIXth century and currently. Actions in this area can be divided into hygienic-sanitary measures including personal care, such as, personal hygiene, physical and psychological health, and medical-policing procedures to prevent the spread of the disease. These last measures include: quarantines, cordons sanitaires, limitations of various kinds on social, cultural, and economic life. The common denominator in the case of both diseases is their avoidance via vaccination.

In the XIXth century, there appeared a new disease, probably hitherto unknown to Europeans, infections cholera, called after the place in Asia where it was endemic. In the introductory part of this article, a brief history of the pandemic of this illness is sketched out, from the time of its appearance in 1816 to modern times. The areas it affected then are shown and the number of its victims. The second pandemic is dealt with in most detail; this was when it first affected a significant part of the Russian Empire. The article demonstrates the route by which cholera spread, beginning from Orenburg, where from the first months of 1829 to February 1830, 3,590 persons fell ill and 865 died. The state authorities tried to gather all information on the nature of the disease, its symptoms, course, and, above all, on prior protection and cure. The basic means of prevention were cordons sanitaires, isolation of homes, quarantining of the sick, and fumigating (disinfecting) rooms. The spread of the unknown disease that killed many was accompanied by fear and sometimes panic among the population. This was expressed in mass disturbances and cholera-related revolts. They took place in Sebastopol, Moscow, and Tambov. There the mob physically assaulted officials, doctors, and soldiers. The struggle against the cholera pandemic and society’s reaction to it are shown via the prism both of decision makers and in the eyes of ordinary people, particularly of those directly affected by the disease. The article contains several interesting quotations from memoir writing; the Tsar’s reaction and that of his family to the disease are shown, and also the effects of the unequal struggle.

This article presents the social context of the cholera epidemic in 1830 in Tsarist Russia, focusing on the reaction of the authorities, including imposed restrictions, as well as social reactions to the disease itself, along with official restrictions, embracing extreme forms of social protests, the so-called “Cholera Riots”. There are also descriptions of medical recommendations, prophylaxis, and the then recommended methods of treating cholera, the position and activities of the church and the role of the media via the example of the daily newspaper Сѣверная пчела.

Experience of the real threat to public health constituted by the cholera epidemic of 1832 in Paris is presented in this article in terms of its revolutionary import and significance. Among these, the following should be noted: the concept of an internal and external enemy, which, as many thought, led to the appearance of the disease; the significance of rumour, which contributed to violent events and disturbances; casting suspicion on persons who were seen as suspect poisoners; the collective dimension of death as a result of infection; and the general inspection of the dead and the printed lists of their names Events that shocked public opinion and dramatic images meant, on one hand, a calling up and contemporary realization of revolutionary imaginings.

However, the essence of experience and post-revolutionary consciousness was concentrated on unwanted consequences: violence, disarray, chaos, and destruction. As a result, there was a reluctance to make a direct comparison between the cholera epidemic and various aspects of it to revolutionary events. Metaphors of and comparisons to the Jacobin terror were not supposed to encourage a repetition of this but rather to reflect the scale of horror felt at the appearance of cholera and its extent.

At the same, one must note that alongside revolutionary echoes, there emerged a modern perspective resulting from an awareness of the consequences for urban life of the existence of great social differences. Harmful and unhealthy living conditions, especially in Parisian districts where there was want and poverty, produced hot-beds of cholera. There was a realization of the necessity of improving sanitation and hygiene, introducing city cleaning, building water and sewage systems, all of which marked the beginning of the re-building of Paris.

In the press, memoirs, diaries, medical printed material and brochures, and in literature, there is a reflection of the variety of imaginings linked to the past and tradition of revolutionary Paris in the face of the appearance of cholera. Revolutions, with their myths, rituals, symbolism, and their ludic and carnivalesque elements, became a distinctive matrix, sometimes inverted, through which interpretations and definitions were offered of what animated the inhabitants of Paris. There is no doubt that the 1832 cholera epidemic became one of those experiences.

Hugh Gibson (1883–1954) was a young American diplomat who had a knack for landing in the thick of the action. During the pandemic of 1918, he found himself in Paris tasked with advising General John Pershing on diplomatic matters, straightening out the morass of American propaganda in Europe, and collaborating with military intelligence. To this was added the role of official US liaison to the Polish and Czech national committees. His multiple tasks were carried out against the backdrop of the dramatic last six months of the Great War. The Armistice of November 1918 arrived on the heels of the deadly second wave of the “Spanish Flu”. Gibson then turned his attention from military matters to humanitarian aid for all of Europe as diplomatic adviser to Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration. Throughout the tumultuous year from spring 1918 to spring 1919, Gibson experienced the Spanish Flu from multiple angles: military, diplomatic, international, refugee, care-giver, and a personal bout with the flu. Using excerpts from An American in Europe at War and Peace: Hugh Gibson’s Chronicles, 1918–1919 (edited by Vivian Reed and Jochen Böhler, DeGruyter Oldenbourg, Fall 2020), this article traces Gibson’s fascinating journey through a historic pandemic.

Sweden, like many other countries, experienced the effects of the Spanish flu epidemic, which lasted from June 1918 to mid-1919. During this time, 37,000 inhabitants of Sweden died from this strain of influenza. The analysis undertaken relates to how the epidemic and its consequences were dealt with and what the development of the epidemic entailed for Swedish society. The main sources are statistical data showing both the scale of the incidence of this influenza variety and the demographic consequences. Daily press and memoirs were also used. The epidemic occurred in Sweden with varying intensity. It mainly affected people between 20 and 40 years of age. A significant number of victims were seen in the army, which posed a serious threat to state security. The Swedish authorities were not prepared to deal with an influenza epidemic. But they quickly managed to organise temporary care for flu patients. While fighting the epidemic, a number of reforms were introduced (reorganisation of the health service, a new tax system, changes to the welfare system), which led to the creation of the Swedish welfare state model in the following decade. The epidemic also had a trickle-down effect on the democratisation of public life.

One of the diseases that provoked widespread fear during the Second World War was typhus. Memory of the mass deaths it had caused during the previous conflict produced well-grounded fears among front-line soldiers and civilians (despite the existence of innoculations, which were hard to obtains). On the basis of two contemporary journals, this article demonstrates the course of the disease in the realia of occupied Lwiw, the presentation of the issue in the press, and methods of combatting the epidemic. Despite fears, death from typhus in occupied Lwiw was relatively small, which can probably be explained both by measures adopted and the functioning in that city of an institution producing an effective vaccine. The exception was the Jewish ghetto, where, as a result of deliberate Nazi policies, the disease caused an enormous number of deaths. Typhus was also an important element in Nazi propaganda, which is also reflected in the columns of the Lwiw press

The subject of this article is Rapid Response Collecting (RRC) as one of the ways in which museums can operate in exceptional situations. Between 2020 and 2021, in Poland and all over the world, curators resorted to RRC in order to document – in live dialogue with society – the pandemic and social protests. The subject of RRC is barely present in the subject literature. This article gathers English-language scholarly literature from the USA and various European countries, and it analyzes cases of applying RRC in Polish museums during the COVID-19 epidemic. From the pandemic’s first weeks, numerous journalistic pieces (and sometime scholarly ones too) – about online activities of museums and other institutions have been published. Internet activities are seen as the first, most obvious, and even universal “cure” for all the difficulties of times of plague. The aim of this article is to present another way in which museums can react to dynamic changes in the surrounding world. In this article, RRC is also presented in the context of transformations taking place in the theory and practice of museum studies in the last few decades. The application of RRC is part of museum activity implemented according to the latest international definitions of a museum, both those in operation and those recommended.

The paper presents an analysis of the presentation of major epidemics (pandemics) in the history of mankind in Polish history textbooks for secondary schools published between 1989 and 2020. A qualitative study was carried out on a sample of forty-four textbooks and concerned issues such as: epidemics in antiquity, the so-called “Black Death’ from 1346 to 1353, epidemics in the New World during the period known as the Age of Discovery, and the Spanish flu (the Great Influenza Epidemic) of 1918–1920. This analysis made it possible to formulate conclusions: 1) the medieval “Black Death” epidemic of the XIVth century was presented most fully, both in terms of content and diversity of coverage. This is understandable because of the scale, significance, geographical proximity, and strong roots of this phenomenon in history-teaching literature. “The Black Death” was shown with a broad consideration of the genesis of the phenomenon and its multidirectional demographic, social and economic consequences; 2) the epidemics that took place in the period of antiquity were only to a small extent reflected in the textbooks analyzed. The exception are textbooks by Marek Ziółkowski (editions 1999 and 2002), in which epidemics from the times of the Roman Empire are described in greater detail; 3) in the case of the XVIth-century epidemics from the New World, as well as the Spanish flu, the school reader received what was definitely elementary information, which was not always accurate and precise, without references to the latest scholarly findings; 4) elements of teaching support (maps, tables, illustrations) appeared mainly in the contents dedicated to the “Black Death” and, to a lesser extent, to the XVIth-century epidemics on the American continent; 5) in the textbooks analyzed, there was no clear variation in the way the above-mentioned phenomena were presented in the course of the period discussed.