The COVID-19 epidemic swept the world in 2019. According to statistics, up to 6 million people have died due to COVID-19, bringing huge panic to people around the world.

Text | Kaige Jianshi

Editor | Kaige Jianshi

An unprecedented plague broke out , sweeping across the entire European continent.

Dozens of countries have all fallen, 25 million people have lost their lives, this plague is not inferior to the new crown at all.

The 2019 COVID-19 outbreak swept across the world. According to statistics, up to 36 million people have died due to COVID-19, which has brought huge panic to people around the world.

In fact, in the history of world epidemic prevention, there is a plague that is far more fearful than the new crown, and that is the European Great Plague in the medieval period.

There were corpses everywhere wherever he went. Therefore, the 14th century was called the terrifying "Dark Ages" by Europeans.

However, when the terrible plague attacked our country, the Chinese people completely eradicated it in only 67 days, which shocked the world.

The "Black Death" swept across Europe in the Middle Ages

The "Black Death", also known as the plague, was a strong infectious disease that spread Yersinia pestis with the help of rats and fleas. It was An epidemic with extremely high infection and fatality rates.

In the sixth century AD, plague began to spread in the Mediterranean areas surrounding Europe, Africa and Asia. It was known as the "Sidian Plague" in medical history and was the first plague outbreak recorded in history.

As for the most serious one, the one with the most significant impact was the "European Medieval Plague" in the 14th century.

The continents along the Mediterranean suffered serious casualties, which lasted until the 17th century. The specific death toll has not been investigated until now.

According to statistics, the death toll caused by plague in history is as high as 300 million. In the fourteenth century in Europe, was even called the "Dark Age".

1346, there was a port city named Kaffa located in the north of the Black Sea. It was an important hub for trade between various countries. At that time, the population of many European ethnic groups were engaged in the trading of goods here.

But I don’t know which day, residents in the city suddenly began to die one after another. They suffered from an extremely strange disease , the fatality rate was extremely high , as long as it lasted for three to five days, they would have difficulty breathing and die. .

Horrible pustules will appear on the patient's body , and the body will turn a frightening black and purple color after death. Gradually, more and more people in the city are suffering from similar illnesses, and more and more people will die.

The plague is spreading rapidly, and doctors are unable to protect themselves..

In Europe in the fourteenth century, medical facilities were not perfect, and coupled with the dense crowds in the city, more and more people in the city soon died of the plague.

The local cemetery was simply not enough, so the government arranged for survivors to use wooden sticks to push the bodies of the deceased into the sea.

Residents in the city began to run out of the city one after another, so due to the spread of the disease, the disease quickly spread to the entire European region .

reduced to hell on earth

1348, a Florentine man named Boccazio recorded this condition. Because the body of the deceased was covered with black patches, officially named it "Black Death" Disease" .

At this time, Florence had already been captured by this terrible plague and became the hardest-hit area. Boccaccio, known as "one of the three masters of the Renaissance", experienced this horrific plague personally.

When he was young, he followed his father to Florence, but he didn't want the city where he had lived for many years to turn into a terrible hell on earth due to the arrival of a plague.

"Pedestrians suddenly drop dead while walking on the street; people who stay at home die alone, and no one knows about it until the stench of the body is smelled."

At this time, Boccaccio recorded in his novel "The Decameron" that four-fifths of the people in Florence at that time died in the plague. Boccaccio mourned painfully: "God is so cruel to mankind. pole. ”

What he didn’t know was that the that caused the plague was not the God he said, but themselves. The people at the bottom don't even have beds and can only lie on dry haystacks.

People advocate filth to set off the sanctity of the soul, so some people even never take a bath or have a haircut . The facilities undoubtedly catalyzed the further spread of the terrible "Black Death"

"Ring-shaped roses, bouquets filled with pockets, ashes, ashes, you will all fall! "Describes the crazy behavior of patients when they die from the disease.

The British nursery rhyme "roses" hides the cruel scene of the plague at that time . The stench of dead corpses is everywhere on the streets of Britain. In order to cover up the smell of corpses, The car carrying the corpse was filled with bright flowers.

In the face of the terrible plague, both the rulers and the people were in panic. People who believed in God believed that this was God's punishment for mankind

. In order to comfort their souls, some people attributed these plague outbreaks to some Jews , cats and witches

A large number of Jews and cats were killed, the rotting corpses and the dirty environment made the rats grow more rapidly.

Under this kind of fear and panic, people in Europe are living in hell, facing the threat of death at any time

After six years of events, due to the "Black Death". The number of people who died has reached 25 million, which is one-third of the total number of people in Europe. On average, one person in every three will die from the "Black Death".

However, what people did not expect was that this terrible event. However, it took less than four months for the plague to be completely eradicated when it was introduced into the Northeast.

The "Black Death" attacked China

When the "Black Death" spread, our country was not immune. In the winter of October 1910, a guest suddenly died in an inn in a northeastern border city. The body showed a terrible black color, which was a symptom of the "Black Death".

The plague soon spread in the city. It spread all the way to the Harbin area, and the rampant "Black Death" immediately invaded every corner of Harbin.

In less than a month, the plague spread to the three northeastern provinces of , killing tens of thousands of people every month. Death from the plague.

The outbreak of plague has attracted the attention of people all over the world. Will the "Black Death", which has harmed the European continent for three hundred years, come back?

Once the plague cannot be controlled in time, it will continue to rage. It was not only the security of Beijing, but also the whole of China and the whole world that would fall again. So the Qing government immediately appointed Wu Liande, the vice president of Tianjin Medical College, to serve as the full-power medical officer for plague prevention in the three eastern provinces. , blocking the further expansion of the "Black Death".

The reason why Wu Liande was appointed as the chief medical officer in the fight against the plague was because he was a doctor of medicine who graduated from Cambridge University and had conducted in-depth research on malaria and other epidemic diseases.

The anti-epidemic work officially began

On December 24, 1910, Wu Liande arrived in Harbin. Although Wu Liande had conducted in-depth research on infectious diseases such as plague, he was still shocked by the local scene when he arrived in Harbin.

As the Spring Festival approaches, the streets are deserted, and every household is staying behind closed doors. It seems like we have arrived in a desolate empty city . Dead bodies that have long been frozen stiff can be seen everywhere on the streets.

Because of the continuous outbreak of plague, the death toll continued to rise. It was cold and freezing, and the roads were covered with thick snow. There was no way for the dead to be buried.

Some patients may die suddenly, and some or even a whole family dies due to the plague . The body cannot be buried in a grave. In this case, it can only be thrown randomly on the street.

So, Wu Liande went to local officials for help, and the police issued a notice asking people to do a good job in epidemic prevention.

At first, local people did not trust Wu Liande because people needed to be arranged to carry out disinfection work. Local people believed that masks and protective clothing would only hinder their work and were not willing to work wearing masks at all.

As a result, not only did it not eliminate germs in the early stages of disinfection, actually infected more people with the virus. spread from ten to ten, and the number of patients increased.

In order to avoid and solve this problem as soon as possible, Wu Liande held a meeting in advance. However, officials are even more lazy.

Wu Liande said: "It is this ignorance of modern quarantine, prevention and control knowledge, and the inactivity in treating the plague that has led to the complexity of today's situation."

In fact, before Wu Liande arrived in Harbin, government officials in the Northeast According to the suggestions given by Western experts, carried out a massive rodent eradication operation.

At that time, Western experts believed that China's "Black Death" should be the same as the plague in Europe in the Middle Ages. They proposed that the plague could be eliminated as long as all the rats were exterminated.

However, even though they caught nearly 80,000 mice, they still could not find the key source of the "Black Death": Yersinia pestis.

The vigorous rodent control campaign did not solve the terrible plague at all. Instead, it became more fierce and people fell into panic again. On the third day, Wu Liande went to Fujiadian, the area hardest hit by the plague, to thoroughly investigate the source of the virus.

In order to find out the truth as soon as possible, Wu Liande prepared to dissect the dead body.

Due to social pressure, Wu Liande carried out the work of autopsy in secret.

After extracting usable samples, Wu Liande carefully cultivated them and finally found the real culprit of the plague, Yersinia pestis , under the microscope.

So where does Yersinia pestis come from?

The "pneumonic plague" that shocked China and foreign countries

A plague in Europe in the Middle Ages, believes that the host of the virus is rodents , and fleas transmit Yersinia pestis to humans through bites.

But the large-scale outbreak of this epidemic occurred in winter. Rats did not go around and fleas had no place to live. Moreover, the Yersinia pestis virus was not found in rats.

This shows that the spread of this epidemic is not exactly the same as the plague in the Middle Ages. So where is the source of the plague? How is it spread?

Wu Liande put forward a viewpoint that shocked China and foreign countries: "Pneumonic Plague" .

Wu Liande discovered through observation of the patients that their lung infections were abnormally obvious.

Therefore, Wu Liande believed that the spread of the plague was actually between people. This was a plague that could spread among people through the air.

After coming to the conclusion, Wu Liande quickly reported the details to the Qing government. Unexpectedly, he was strongly opposed by Professor Meni. Professor Meni

believed that a young man who had only stayed in an epidemic area for a few days dared to openly communicate with the West. Continuing a century-old confrontation in medical research, he believed that Wu Liande's behavior was blatantly "deviant and intolerable".

Therefore, Professor Meni asked himself to go to the epidemic area and take over Wu Liande's work.

Unexpectedly, Professor Meni accidentally contracted germs when he arrived in Harbin because he did not wear a mask as required and had direct contact with patients. Within a few days, he contracted the "Black Death".

A European plague expert died of plague, and the news shocked the world. Professor Meni’s sacrifice also established Wu Liande’s prestige, and the work was carried out more smoothly.

Wu Liande came to Fujiadian again and after careful investigation. Finally found the fundamental source of the epidemic and found a piece of fur made by Russians in a family's shack.

Because the weather in the Northeast is extremely cold, local people like to wear clothes made of animal fur. Mink is expensive and has low output, so some businessmen will propose to buy prairie dog skins and pass them off as inferior ones. .

On that piece of fur, Wu Liande detected Yersinia pestis, the culprit responsible for the "Black Death".

confirmed the source and mode of transmission, Wu Liande immediately formulated an epidemic prevention plan and specific measures. Looking at it now, it is very similar to the way we are fighting the new crown epidemic.

First of all, Wu Liande made the "Wu's Mask" himself and established a simple epidemic prevention station to protect the safety of epidemic prevention personnel. Wu Liande was the first person to create a "mask" in Chinese history.

In addition, the army was ordered to block the Shanhaiguan intersection and prohibit random passage. All people entering and leaving the three northeastern provinces must stay in "quarantine" for 5 days before they can pass normally. Even the princes and tutors must comply.

Under strict management and control, the plague was quickly brought under control. The strange thing about is that although the epidemic is no longer spreading outward, it has not been completely eradicated.

More people died of the plague. Not only did the outside world raise doubts, but Wu Liande himself was also filled with doubts. What was the problem?

Wu Liande could only come to Fujiadian Cemetery again, and finally found the answer here. Corpses were piled everywhere in the cemetery, turning into piles of "corpse mountains."

This means that there are countless bacteria living in this environment. Although the Northeast was still at a low temperature of tens of degrees below zero at that time, low temperature alone cannot completely kill the bacteria.

If the weather warms up and the temperature is suitable, the plague will break out again. Not to mention the three northeastern provinces, the entire China will be completely destroyed. Looking at the mountains of corpses in front of him, Wu Liande ordered: burn all the corpses and coffins.

However, according to ancient traditions, there was no such thing as cremation. Wu Liande's order undoubtedly challenged the feudal ideas of old China. Local people and officials collectively came out to oppose it.

Wu Liande could only report this decision to the Qing government, indicating that if the situation at that time was not completely burned, the plague could not be eradicated at all. There were constant disputes over this matter in the imperial court. Fortunately, the Prince Regent's Palace sent the final telegram, approving Wu Liande's petition.

So on January 30, 1911, the first day of the Lunar New Year, Wu Liande led his officers and soldiers to the cemetery and ordered it to be burned. The fire burned for three days and three nights.

Along with the fire, the plague gradually dissipated. Two months later, the epidemic ended completely.

In less than four months, the epidemic was completely eliminated, which not only saved thousands of lives, but also created a miracle in the history of world epidemic prevention.