A poster advertising polio research

Before Long COVID Came Post-Polio Syndrome

While the rise of long COVID and its many symptoms may be surprising and difficult to diagnose, post-viral diseases are nothing new.
Amphibian attack of spanish-tlaxcallan force

How Aztecs Reacted to Colonial Epidemics

Colonial exploitation made the indigenous Aztec people disproportionately vulnerable to epidemics. Indigenous accounts show their perspective.
Panel from the Florentine Cortex depicting smallpox outbreaks in the Americas during the 16th century

European Colonization and Epidemics Among Native Peoples

What you learned about the diseases that decimated Native communities is probably wrong.
Members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union receive the flu shot in 1957

How America Brought the 1957 Influenza Pandemic to a Halt

Microbiologist Maurice Hilleman saw it coming, so the country made 40 million doses of the vaccine within months.
A Red Cross nurse wearing a face mask, c. 1918

Teaching Pandemics Syllabus

Readings on the history of quarantine, contagious disease, viruses, infections, and epidemics offer important context for the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
A person driving a Mercedes

In Epidemics, the Wealthy Have Always Fled

"The poor, having no choice, remained.”
Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D.C., during the great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 - 1919

Surviving a Pandemic, in 1918

A century ago, Catholic nuns from Philadelphia recalled what it was like to tend to the needy and the sick during the great influenza pandemic of 1918.
People wearing latex gloves while food shopping in Merrick, NY, March 17, 2020

Could Foreign Policy Stop Another Pandemic?

Diseases know no borders. International cooperation and solidarity, say scholars, are as essential as funding.
The Decameron by John William Waterhouse

Boccaccio’s Medicine

In the Decameron of Boccaccio, friends tell one another stories of love to while away the hours of quarantine.
A cup of coffee with a red circle and a line struck through it

When Coffee Cargo Was Quarantined

In the 1800s, sick passengers weren’t blamed for disease epidemics—their baggage and cargo was.