SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Ebola makes an unannounced stop in Texas

Nothing new here perhaps:hmmm:: 430, 429, and 427 BC-the Peloponnesian War: .."Thucydides writes of a disease coming from Ethiopia and passing through Egypt and Libya into the Greek world—a plague so severe and deadly that no one could recall anywhere its like, and physicians ignorant of its nature not only were helpless but themselves died the fastest, since they had the most contact with the sick. In overcrowded Athens the disease killed an estimated one third to two thirds of the population. The sight of the burning funeral pyres of Athens caused the Spartans to withdraw, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy. Many of Athens' infantry and expert seamen died as well as their general Pericles. After the death of Pericles, Athens was led by a succession of leaders Thucydides described as incompetent or weak. "Historians have long tried to identify the disease behind the Plague of Athens. The disease has traditionally been considered an outbreak of the bubonic plague in its many forms, but reconsiderations of the reported symptoms and epidemiology have led scholars to advance alternative explanations. These include typhus, smallpox, measles, and toxic shock syndrome. Others have suggested anthrax, tramped up from the soil by the thousands of stressed refugees or concentrated livestock held within the walls. Based upon striking descriptive similarities with recent outbreaks in Africa, as well as the fact that the Athenian plague itself apparently came from Africa (as Thucydides recorded), Ebola or a related Viral Hemorrhagic Fever has been considered....
Thucydides' narrative pointedly refers to increased risk among caregivers, which is more typical of the person-to-person contact spread of viral hemorrhagic fever (e.g., Ebola virus disease or Marburg virus) than typhus or typhoid. Unusual in the history of plagues during military operations, especially when relatively close physical proximity of combatants was the rule, besieging Spartan troops appear not to have been afflicted by the illness raging near them within the city. Thucydides' description further invites comparison with VHF in the character and sequence of symptoms developed and of the usual fatal outcome on about the eighth day. Olson et al. have interpreted Thucydides' "lugx kenē" (empty heaving) as the unusual symptom of hiccups, which is now recognized as a common finding in Ebola Virus Disease. Outbreaks of VHF in Africa in 2012 and 2014 reinforced observations of the increased hazard to caregivers and the necessity of barrier precautions for preventing disease spread related to grief rituals and funerary rites. With an up to three-week incubation period, transmission of Ebola via Nile commerce into the busy port of Piraeus is certainly plausible. Ancient Greek intimacy with African sources is reflected in accurate renditions of monkeys in art of frescoes and pottery, notably guenons, the primates implicated in transmitting Marburg into Germany and Yugoslavia when that disease was first characterized in 1967. Circumstantially tantalizing is the requirement for the large quantity of ivory used in the Athenian sculptor Phidias’ two monumental ivory and gold statues of Athena and of Zeus (one of the Seven Wonders), which were fabricated in the same decade. Never again in antiquity was ivory used on such a large scale.
Unfortunately DNA sequence-based identification is limited by the inability of some important pathogens to leave a "footprint" retrievable from archaeological remains after several millennia. The lack of a durable signature by RNA viruses means some etiologies, notably the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever viruses, are not testable hypotheses using currently available scientific techniques." Bottom line: Thucydides is seldom inaccurate; this plague cost Athens the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Athens