The videos I watched became popular in ancient times

Chapter 163 Six major plagues in ancient times
  After more than an hour of teaching Chinese characters, ancient people from all dynasties stopped what they were doing and looked at the sky with solemn expressions.

The anchor said yesterday that after playing Chinese character teaching, videos related to the plague will be played.

Plague is something that ancient people from all dynasties have become dismayed upon hearing.

I don’t know how many people died of the plague for no apparent reason, but there was nothing we could do about it. When the plague came, we could only wait to die.

It is precisely because of the fear of the plague that everyone looks at the sky in unison, hoping that the anchor will tell everyone how to avoid the plague so that they can deal with it when the plague comes in the future.

The emperors of various dynasties were originally meeting with important ministers to discuss state affairs. After hearing the eunuch's report that the teaching of Chinese characters was over, they all suspended the discussion of political affairs and led the ministers outside the palace.

The plague is a matter of great importance, related to the life and death of thousands of people.

At this time, no matter how big the political issue is, it cannot compare to the plague.

If we can learn how to prevent the plague from the anchor, then if a plague occurs in the country in the future, the court can take corresponding measures instead of being helpless.

Compared with other people, the doctors of each dynasty seemed more excited and had made all preparations in advance.

Every time a plague occurs, as doctors, they can only watch the people die suddenly, and others cannot relate to that helpless feeling.

But now, they may soon have a way to deal with the plague, and maybe it will be possible to completely eradicate the plague.

After this period of understanding, they discovered that the medical development of later generations far exceeded theirs.

For them, there was no way to deal with the plague, but for later generations, it was not necessarily the case. They might not have conquered the plague.

Even if later generations do not conquer the plague, it is very likely that they will find a way to deal with it.

Amid the anxiety and nervousness of the ancients from all dynasties, the sky screen changed and a video introducing the plague began to play.

【In ancient China, epidemic diseases were called epidemic qi, and they believed that epidemic diseases were caused by abnormal qi.

The ancients believed that epidemics are closely related to time, and usually occur after severe droughts, floods, insect disasters, or during seasonal imbalances.

In addition, it is related to wars and disasters. When a war or disaster occurs, a large number of people will die, and the bodies cannot be processed, which will lead to the growth of the virus. Coupled with the large-scale movement of the population, the spread of the virus will be accelerated.

There were at least 2113 recorded large-scale plagues in ancient China from the early Han Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. Today we will take stock of some of the most serious plagues. 】

Ancient people from various dynasties still very much recognized what was said in the video. After a major disaster, there must be a major epidemic. This is their experience accumulated over thousands of years.

Every time a major disaster occurs, such as drought, insect infestation, or flood, a plague will inevitably follow, killing large swaths of people.

They were helpless against the plague and couldn't find the reason at all. They thought it was God's punishment for the people.

Countless ordinary people were horrified when they heard that more than 300 plagues had occurred in the two thousand years from the beginning of the Han Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.

This number is so terrible. On average, a plague breaks out once every seven years. Just thinking about it is terrifying.

Li Shizhen: It turns out that the plague is caused by a virus. Is this virus somehow related to the bacteria that the anchor mentioned before?

He heard a key word, virus.

The spread of the virus has led to a large-scale outbreak of plague. It seems that the culprit of the plague is the virus.

In the past, bacterial infections needed to be treated with penicillin. I don’t know if penicillin has any effect on plague.

[1. The great plague in the late Western Han Dynasty
  At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, there were 12 million households and 60 million people in the country.

In 2 AD, droughts, locust plagues, and plagues occurred in various places.

In the following twenty years, two more major plague events occurred.

According to historical records, in severe epidemics, only half of the dead were scattered and led away.

To put it simply, in the past twenty years or so, half of the country's population, about 30 million people, died of the plague, and the remaining people fled in all directions.

The outbreak of the great plague at the end of the Western Han Dynasty led to the first large-scale peasant uprising in history, the Green Forest Red Eyebrow Uprising. 】

The ancients during the Western Han Dynasty were so frightened that 30 million people died from the plague. Just thinking about it made my scalp numb.

The people in the early Western Han Dynasty were okay, they just felt lucky that the plague did not happen in their era.

But the common people in the late Western Han Dynasty all looked gray, their eyes were full of despair, and many people even cried.

Originally, they were not too worried about the severe drought, thinking it would pass soon.

But now tell them that an unprecedented plague will occur in the next twenty years, killing half of the country's population. How can they bear it?

[2. The great plague in the late Eastern Han Dynasty
  At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the country's population was about 60 million.

However, due to frequent wars, plagues became frequent.

During the reign of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, there were three major epidemics in the country, and during the reign of Emperor Ling, there were five major epidemics. During the Jian'an period of the last emperor Xian, plagues were prevalent in the Central Plains, with typhoid fever being the most ferocious, with an extremely high mortality rate.

By the 20th year of Jian'an, the country's population had dropped from more than 60 million to 15 million, a decrease of 45 million.

The outbreak of the great plague at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty led to the Yellow Turban Rebellion. By the time of the establishment of the Three Kingdoms, the country's population was less than eight million. 】

Zhang Zhongjing flipped through the "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" in his hand, and when he heard about the great plague in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, painful memories were awakened.

He was a personal experiencer of this great plague. His family was originally a large clan, with a population of more than 200 people at its peak.

However, in less than ten years since the early years of Jian'an, two-thirds of the Zhang family died of the plague.

Not only their Zhang family, but thousands of people in the entire country were devoured by the disease, and it even caused an unprecedented disaster among the people, with ten houses and nine empty houses.

He traveled across the country and witnessed with his own eyes the serious consequences that the plague had brought to the people.

So while traveling around to practice medicine, he devoted himself to studying typhoid fever.

Finally, it took nearly ten years to compile "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" based on the prevalence, diagnosis and treatment of typhoid fever.

[3. Great plagues in the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties

The two Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties were the first great division period in Chinese history, with frequent wars and constant plagues.

After Emperor Wu of Jin unified China, wars decreased and plagues decreased relatively.

However, with the Rebellion of the Eight Kings and the Five Rebellions during the reign of Emperor Hui of the Jin Dynasty, China, which was briefly unified, entered a period of frequent wars. Wars and plagues accompanied it, and major plagues occurred almost every year.

At that time, in the north, due to the chaos caused by the barbarians, the people even reached the point of cannibalism.

The outbreak of great plagues in the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties led China to enter a period of great division that lasted for three hundred years. 】

When the common people in the Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties heard this, they were frightened to death and wanted to cry without tears.

Living in this era, they are already miserable enough.

The princes above are fighting for power and profit every year, and the ordinary people are miserable.

They always hope that the Eight Kings Rebellion will end soon so that they can return to a stable life. But now the cruel reality tells them that the Eight Kings Rebellion is just the beginning, and there will be tragic disasters waiting for them later.

[4. Great Plague in the Late Southern Song Dynasty
  The imperial court of the Southern Song Dynasty lived in a corner of peace and lingered in Lin'an, suffering not only from turbulent wars but also from successive epidemics.

In the late Southern Song Dynasty, outbreaks occurred almost every ten years or so, such as the Capital Plague, Yongjia Plague, Jiangnan Plague, etc.

Although the Southern Song Dynasty court was able to stop the epidemic every time, it consumed a lot of money in the Southern Song Dynasty and indirectly led to the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. 】

The common people in the late Southern Song Dynasty sighed deeply and felt sad.

Periodic wars have already made their lives miserable, and now a major plague breaks out once every ten years, which simply doesn't give them a way to survive.

But the only thing that makes them happy may be that the court can control the plague in time and prevent it from spreading.

[5. Plague in North China in the late Ming Dynasty

In the late Ming Dynasty, plague appeared in the north.

As it happened to be during Li Zicheng's uprising, and there were frequent battles between the Qing and Ming armies, the plague spread rapidly in North China.

In 1641 AD, the plague was introduced to the capital and quickly caused a large number of casualties to the capital's population.

At least one-third of the population in the capital was killed by the plague, and the deaths from the plague in Shanxi, Hebei, and Henan provinces accounted for 40% of the total population of the three provinces.

The outbreak of plague in North China at the end of the Ming Dynasty led to the demise of the Ming Dynasty, and the Qing army took the opportunity to enter the customs and annex the Central Plains. 】

Chongzhen: I am still sad to hear that the plague has killed a large number of people again, and my heart is filled with panic. However, such a plague will never happen again, and I will not let history repeat the same mistakes.

[6. The great plague of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the late Qing Dynasty
  In the middle and late stages of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, when the Taiping Army and the Hunan Army were engaged in a desperate battle, a plague followed and quickly spread in the war zone south of the Yangtze River.

This disease also has a special name, cholera.

Cholera is a severe infectious disease with sudden onset, rapid spread and high mortality rate.

For China, it is considered a foreign plague that spread to China from Bangladesh.

During the Taiping Rebellion, the world was experiencing the third and fourth cholera epidemics.

The epidemic spread very rapidly in East China such as Ningbo, Hangzhou and Shanghai, with thousands of people dying every day.

The outbreak of the Taiping plague in the late Qing Dynasty directly hit the Qing Dynasty hard and was one of the important reasons for the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. 】

Guangxu: It was such a troubled time. External powers continued to invade the Qing Dynasty. Now, in addition to the peasant uprising of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there was another great plague.

Guangxu saw that the Qing Dynasty was deteriorating day by day and was declining rapidly, and he was suffering in his heart.

He wanted to regroup and change everything.

But he had no choice but to watch the Qing Dynasty decline.

Now another plague is about to break out in the Qing Dynasty. It is really a disaster that never comes singly.

But the only thing that made him feel better was that the plague hadn't broken out yet.

If there is a way to prevent the plague behind the video, it might be possible to prevent the outbreak of this plague.

Not only Guangxu, but also ancient people from all dynasties opened their eyes wide and stared at the sky seriously.

Since the video has talked about plagues that have broken out in the past dynasties, there must also be methods to prevent them.

As expected, the second half of the video shows several ways to prevent the plague.

[1. Isolation Law
  After the plague broke out, the government arranged for the house to be used as an isolation hospital to treat plague patients.

Using quarantine, you can cut off the source of plague and prevent the spread of the disease. 】

Liu Che: My great Han Dynasty has already been using the isolation method. When encountering a plague like leprosy, the imperial court will build a disease relocation center specifically to isolate leprosy patients.

Li Shimin: The patient houses built in the Tang Dynasty were used to treat plague patients. This should be what later generations called the isolation method.

[2. Disinfection method
  Once a plague breaks out, try using vinegar and lime to treat the area where the disease breaks out.

In order to prevent the spread and contamination of the virus, it is best to bury or burn the bodies of patients deeply, cover them with lime and then bury them to completely prevent the virus from spreading again. 】

Ying Zheng: My Qin Dynasty also has a disinfection method. If there is a plague, all guests entering the city from outside will have to go through fire and smoke in their carriages to eliminate the plague.

Zhao Kuangyin: In this way, using mugwort and other drugs to drive away mosquitoes and prevent plague is also a disinfection method.

[3. Public health system facilities

Do not litter randomly to avoid bacterial growth.

In order to prevent the spread of viruses from domestic sewage, it is best to install sewage pipes underground. 】

Ying Zheng: I am familiar with this. Qin Law stipulates that people who litter will not only be fined, but in severe cases, they may even be whipped.

Zhu Yuanzhang: The sewage pipes can be built. The pipes are fired with clay, buried underground, and connected one by one to discharge sewage, so as to ensure the public health of the capital.

[4. Treatment and prevention of traditional Chinese medicine

In "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" compiled by Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there are a variety of prescriptions that can effectively suppress the epidemic.

Wu Tang, an anti-epidemic expert in the Qing Dynasty, wrote "Tiao Bian of Febrile Diseases", which absorbed the essence of "The Yellow Emperor's Internal Classic", "Compendium of Materia Medica" and "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases", and was miraculous in the treatment of plague. 】

Zhang Zhongjing: I knew there would be "Treatise on Febrile and Miscellaneous Diseases" compiled by me. This medical masterpiece was mainly compiled to treat the plague. It is impossible not to mention this in the video.

[5. Artificial pox inoculation and vaccination

Variolation can eliminate the raging smallpox virus.

Take out the pox pulp and a small amount of scabs from the rashes on smallpox patients, or use the clothes worn by smallpox patients to infect people who have never had smallpox.

You can also pick out the blisters of smallpox patients, dry them in the shade, and then blow them into the nostrils of healthy people.

The vaccinated person will be slightly infected with the smallpox virus, and eventually the virus will be eliminated by the body's immune system, thereby acquiring immunity to smallpox.

The safest method is to inoculate cowpox, use smallpox blister to infect cattle, and then use cowpox to prevent the occurrence of smallpox patients. 】

Ancient people from various dynasties were all happy when they saw that vaccination with cowpox could cure smallpox. They finally had a way to deal with smallpox.

Smallpox is a very common plague, and it is unknown how many people died from it.

Once you contract smallpox, you can only resign yourself to your fate. Whether you can survive depends entirely on your fate.

But now it's better, and smallpox can finally be eradicated.

(End of this chapter)