So I apologize for my English and I tried to balance it by fluent Greek in the course

of my lecture. So, sudden unexpected and contrary to all calculation. That's the subtitle of

this theme this evening. And I shall proceed according to a table of contents. And it is

written here infectious diseases in historical perspective. This is a very general introduction.

Again the example of the plague of Athens and its artful reporter and with three subdivisions

planning the war, the disaster and oracle blame and defense. And then a short look at

Greek medicine facing plague and a very short conclusion. I start with a look at infectious

diseases in medical history in a general perspective. What is meant by this? So I show to you this

scheme. And scientifically, this is on the left side, scientifically infectious diseases

are today a matter of microbiology of immunology. The causative agents, virus and bacteria,

are in the focus of research. And the ideal goal of science in this field is a vaccination

starting with Edward Jenner's success more than 200 years ago with his lucky strike against

the smallpox. The science of infectious diseases needs research facilities and noble prices

are often given to virologists in the year 2020. It was the case. Finally, virus archaeology

only to mention it is a special field, for example, when researching on the Spanish flu.

In some, scientifically infectious diseases produce a history of progress and success.

And this notion of progress is not a recent notion, but it's rather old. In the year 1943,

so that means nearly 80 years ago, the US bacteriologist and a specialist for public

health, Charles Edward Winslow wrote a book, The Conquest of Epidemic Disease. The conquest

and conquest, I need not explain it. It means victory. And again, in the year 1943 for him,

victory on infectious diseases seemed to be at hand. So he was an exponent of progress

optimism. But as you see on the right side, there's a lot of space and I can fill it when

we proceed to the context of society, culture and politics. There are a lot of problems

when we regard infectious diseases in this theater. We have to differentiate between

epidemics and endemics. And we have to ask what do mass mortality and loss of control

lead to? What about attempts of control issued by the executive? What about isolation, quarantine?

Do they work? How do they work? And which side effects are to be seen? Complementary

to vaccination on the left side, we have here the notion of compulsory vaccination and resistance

against vaccination. Therapies traditionally in history and in presence when regarding

to pandemics, therapies were not and are not available. This is the case now again. What

does it mean for the image and self-image of medicine? And finally, the framing, the

perception is important. In sum, this is a history of problems. And these are artificially

separated from the history of progress and success. But in reality, these two branches

are interconnected in a complex manner. So this kind of introduction needs again an example.

So we saw Winslow's book, The Conquest of Epidemic Disease. And for the problems we

have, for example, the New York Times bestseller, The Coming Plague, Newly Emerging Diseases

in a World Out of Balance. It was issued in 1995 by the journalist Laurie Garrett, winner

of Pulitzer Award. And this dramatic picture is not shared by professional medical history

because epi and pandemics are a constant factor in history and in present time. A conquest

of epidemic diseases never was and still is not within reach. If you only think of the

AIDS pandemic since the beginning of the 1980s. So this is dramatic.

If we now proceed again to infectious diseases first seen by modern science under the heading

of causation, what is meant by this? In scientific medicine, infectious diseases are caused by

agents, by microbes, virus or bacteria. And these are necessary causes. In any case, we

speak of any disease, we have to find the microbe. Otherwise, it is not the disease.

So the disease entities are defined according to the causative agent. This is very important.

And this guy here on the screen, this is a historic special villain of medical history,

the plague flee. He was important for transferring the plague deaths, but this only by the way.

So this is our modern and it is a very effective concept of infectious diseases causation.

But if we turn to pre-modern perceptions, we talk about origins and not about causation.