A History of Flu Pandemics
Circa 400 BC, Portrait of Hippocrates (c 460 - 377 BC). Greek physician. Known as the 'father of medicine', he developed the belief that an imbalance of the four fluids (or humours) of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow & black bile) are the primary causes of disease. (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images) - artwork dated 1754
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Socrates, You Don’t Look So Good
Flu isn’t new. More than 2,000 years ago (412 B.C.E.), the Greek physician Hippocrates, known as the father of modern medicine, described a respiratory illness we now know as influenza, or flu. He was describing “the cough of Perinthus” in a text known as Epidemics. By the 1170s, outbreaks of influenza-like illnesses began appearing in historical accounts. The keeping of pigs and poultry may have fueled the outbreaks, as the continually mutating influenza virus jumped to humans after circulating among these domestic animals.
—Jessica Snyder Sachs
NEXT: The first flu pandemic >>
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