The bacillus of plague, of influenza, of
cholera, of typhoid, or any other disease propagated by germs, finds
that the climatic or atmospheric conditions are favourable, and
promptly proceeds to multiply, and, once it had a free run, it could
destroy the entire human race in a month.
Pearson's Magazine (1900)
Apparently, there has long been an abiding faith in
the industry and dedication of germs. If you've watched enough
bad sci-fi on television you have a pretty good idea of how diseases,
especially fatal ones, operate. Any epidemic will be 100%
contagious, 100% infectious, nearly 100% fatal, and will spread
through the entire population faster than the latest dance craze.
Indeed, this scenario has been portrayed in fiction so often that its
become part of the mindset of the general public. Most people
today have very little experience with infectious diseases much worse
than the flu and almost none with anything really nasty, so whenever
anything new such as AIDS or Ebola comes along the first
reaction is that this is finally it and they'll be stacking the bodies
in the streets like cord word come Christmas.
Fact is, most diseases are pretty self-limiting.
They have to be because any really infectious and fatal illness is
going to make itself very rare very quickly. That's the
reason why everyone gets colds while rabies cases make headlines.
Colds are a pain the the fundament, but that's about it, so everyone
goes about their business giving the virus to everyone else.
Rabies, on the other hand, is so devastating that when a human contracts it
the nasty little germ has almost no chance of going any further and patient zero is
pretty much the extent of the outbreak. For something really
devastating to happen requires a very special set of circumstances,
such as people crowding together in filthy cities in cold climates
with a bunch of rats that carry bubonic plague so that they have
plenty of opportunity to re-infect the population or when the local
water supply is contaminated with sewage.
But we aren't talking an outbreak of syphilis or
smallpox here. We're going for the big leagues with visitations
of plagues that decimate the whole of human race. So let's to
it.
