Effect of Diseases on the Course of Human History

Throughout the course of history, from antiquity to the modern era, localised plagues and/ or global pandemics have periodically descended upon societies throughout the world with varying degrees of significance. These societies were totally defenceless against these natural disasters. Most survived them. Some did not. They were all significantly changed by them.

However, the assertion that these natural disasters were a major factor in the determining the course of human history, as presented by Jared Diamond is, one which cannot supported without qualification.

This is because despite the fact that diseases, either in the form of localised plagues or global pandemics, significantly impacted upon the growth and development of all societies in the short to medium term, they did not always significantly dictate their long term futures.

Some societies over the course of history demonstrated strong capacities to ultimately recover from the impact of major infectious diseases despite the significant damage caused by them to their populations and their socio-economic environments. In fact, they not only survived them but prospered regardless of them. These societies recovered over time from these natural disasters, were restored to positions of significant strength and stability and, thereafter, achieved sustained growth and prosperity.

The pandemic of 1348-1350 was followed by a long series of recurrent outbreaks all over Europe that continued to the late 17th century.1 In Venice, the ‘Black Death struck twenty three times between 1348 and 1576’. 2 ‘In England, the long affliction came to a climax with an epidemic of bubonic plague in 1665 that killed nearly a tenth of London’s estimated population of 460,000, two thirds of whom fled the city during the outbreak.’3 And yet, despite the social and economic adversities of this period, Western Europe entered into a long and sustained period of economic revival in the 17th and 18th centuries, no doubt due...