A Long View of Infectious Disease– Contexts, Etiologies, Mitigations and Impacts: An Ancient/Modern Comparative Analysis (...with an Eye to the Future)

Outline I. Comparative past-present predictive holistic analysis/analogy encompassing etiology, climate, ecology, environmental disruption, vector, population susceptibility, medical intervention and resulting R0 dynamics a. This paper will first examine commonalities and differences amongst infectious disease outbreaks (both ancient and modern/current), first concentrating on a comparison between an Italian fifth-century BCE event, later recorded by the early Principate historians Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy in comparison with the recent modern spread of such “tropical” disease such as Zika and Dengue. b. Challenges and uncertainties but overall potential strongly indicative/validated II. This same holistic style of analysis will be utilized to compare two significant pandemic events– one ancient and one modern a. The third century Plague of Cyprian b. Covid-19 III. Socio-political factors also are involved in shaping behaviors, perceptions and governmental reactions that help define the de facto parameters of an infectious disease outbreak (along with the factors listed in I [above]). a. Yet disease outbreaks (particularly larger outbreaks or pandemics) occur within existing civilizational parameters in multiple senses. The effects and feedbacks of these interactions (the latter as defined particularly through complex systems theory) are mutual– effectively running in both causal directions. Disease reshapes the parameters of society and society affects the contours of infectious disease outbreaks. 1. While lacking scientific knowledge about microbial genesis, ancient Greeks and the Romans shared concepts and experiences concerning public health. Such discourse was often of great socio-political importance; the first century BCE dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, for example, claimed the ability to master the epidemic fulgors with which the god Apollo Pythios could disseminate deadly plagues among humans. Sulla thus, rather unscrupulously, used the threat of infectious disease to bolster his own authority. 2. Recent modern examples of “vaccine politics”, during the Covid pandemic, demonstrate strong parallels! IV. Through such multifaceted analysis, we begin the task of elucidating parameters for holistically understanding infectious disease outbreaks– past and present. A concluding section examines how our broader conceptual framework can contribute to better understanding of the potential holistic impact of infectious disease outbreaks in the remainder of the twenty-first century.