Name: Plague 101 | National Geographic
Uploaded: 2020-02-19T04:54:21.000Z
Duration: 4 min 17 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

- [Narrator] Plague is notorious for causing

But as much tragedy as the disease has caused,

it also helped drive crucial scientific and social progress.

It mainly affects rodents, and spreads by way of insects.

Three major plague pandemics have occurred in human history.

that paved the way for the spread of disease.

Trade routes connected once-isolated communities

trade routes also facilitated the movement of germs.

In the sixth century, outbreaks began in Egypt

and, thanks to land and sea trade routes,

they spread throughout the Byzantine Empire.

the Plague of Justinian is estimated to have wiped out

Growing economies also made way for urbanization

which created unsanitary living conditions.

Cities and their residents essentially became incubators

This was particularly evident in the second

Europe was experiencing an economic and population boom,

Proper waste management did not exist at the time,

After trade routes brought plague from Asia,

where it killed millions in China and the Middle East,

the disease wiped out about a third of Europe's population,

earning itself the moniker the Black Death.

What also aided in the transmission of the disease

the cause of illnesses, germs, was unknown,

making sicknesses like the plague a mystery.

This lack of knowledge drove the spread of disease

eventually reached major port cities in China.

and caused outbreaks in every continent except Antarctica,

making it the most widespread pandemic in history.

This plague pandemic, however, was the last.

In 1894, scientists discovered the bacteria

Their discovery helped further developments in microbiology,

medicine, urban planning, and sanitation methods,

which led to the treatment and prevention of the disease.

contributed to the disastrous spread of plague.

In turn, however, the disease helped catapult

crucial advancements in science and public health,

very well making plague pandemics a thing of the past.

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Plague 101 | National Geographic

vulnerable

crucial

essentially

eventually