Shenyang, April 4 (ZXS) -- Question: How does the plague affect the history of human civilization?

——Interview with Wu Bin, Distinguished Professor of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese and former President of Shenyang Palace Museum

China News Agency reporter Wang Jingwei

The plague has always been accompanied by human civilization. Coexistence with the plague is the true history of the development of human society to this day. How did the plague arise? Why is the plague a "disease of civilization"? How have humans responded to plagues historically? What influence and enlightenment does it bring to human civilization?

Wu Bin, a historical and cultural scholar, distinguished professor of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese and former president of the Shenyang Palace Museum, recently gave an exclusive interview to China News Agency's "East-West Question" to make an in-depth interpretation of this.

The following is a summary of the interview:

China News Agency: How did the plague arise? Why is the history of human civilization a history of epidemics?

Wu Bin: The emergence and spread of the plague are in many cases related to the way of life and state of human beings, and to a certain material and social environment.

In general, plague is an infectious disease, but not all infectious diseases are called plagues. The infectious disease known as the plague has four main characteristics: first, the outbreak is sudden; Second, it is widely disseminated; Third, the lethality rate is high; Fourth, it is highly terrifying.

In human history, plagues have appeared frequently. In ancient Chinese texts, there are records of plague almost every three or five years. There are small-scale, localized areas, and there are large-scale, nationwide ones, which are called "pandemics" in the literature. In China's written history of about 3000,<> years, such a "pandemic" has occurred dozens of times.

Plague is a "cluster" disease that requires a certain number of people to gather as a basic condition for its epidemic. The denser the population, the faster the plague spreads, and the virus survives for generations. This also explains why, the more recent the history, the more frequent the plague appears, the greater the damage it causes.

In primitive societies, even if there was a plague, it was already in the late primitive era, and human beings began to enter agricultural society from the hunting stage, not far from the threshold of civilized society, and already had the necessary population density conditions for the spread of plague.

With the entry into an agrarian society, the population was further concentrated, and a larger and denser population concentration was formed in the following thousands of years. Compared to the hunting lifestyle, agricultural societies are 10 times or even 100 times more dense. Compared with the agricultural lifestyle, the population density of cities has increased hundredfold.

Another condition for the emergence of plague is the movement and migration of people. Human migration across regions, the emergence of irrigated agriculture, the rise of cities, caravanserais, merchant shipping, war, pilgrimage, etc., all contributed to the spread of plague from one circle of disease to another. And with the development of world trade, a plague in one place is more likely to quickly transcend national borders and become a disaster for all mankind.

A vial of smallpox vaccine. Smallpox was the first infectious disease to be eradicated worldwide so far. Photo courtesy of Visual China

The expansion of colonialism in modern Europe has extended the scope of the plague to the whole world. European colonialists entered the American continent, bringing with them deadly microorganisms such as smallpox that led to the unprecedented extinction of Indians; The 1918 "Spanish flu", known as the "deadliest plague in history", originated with American soldiers. It can be said that the plague is a "disease of civilization" that "develops and changes" with the development of human society.

China News Agency: What is the impact of the plague on human society? Why is it said that the plague has deeply participated in and affected the process of human civilization?

Wu Bin: The Swedish pathologist Falk Hansken said that the history of mankind is the history of its diseases. A disease or plague pandemic, which accompanies the course of human civilization and has a profound and comprehensive impact on human civilization, is often more intense than wars, revolutions, and insurrections, because it strikes directly at the core of civilization and the most fundamental part of all productive forces - human beings themselves.

At many pivotal moments in the course of world history, the plague triggered unexpected changes. Some historians believe that it was the great plague of Athens that determined the situation of the Peloponnesian War, caused Athens to be defeated by Sparta, led to the decline of the glorious ancient Greek civilization, and then ended the ancient Greek civilization stage in the history of human civilization.

French painter Nicolas Poussin's work The Plague of Ashdod recreates the "Antoninus" plague that occurred in ancient Rome during the reign of Antony the Great. Photo courtesy of Visual China

For the rise and fall of ancient Rome, historians and political scientists have discussed politics, economy, culture, customs, military and other aspects, and put forward various speculations and hypotheses. Although the fall of this great empire was by no means an overnight event, nor was it caused by a single factor, an important effect that cannot be ignored was the plague. The great plague of Marcus Aurelius' reign led to a century of social crisis and turmoil after his death, setting the stage for the decline of the empire.

Similarly, in the Eastern Roman Empire, Justinian made great efforts to restore the honor and territory of the former Roman Empire. But under the blows of a series of natural and man-made disasters, his dream only stopped at the dream stage. One of the most devastating events recognized by many historians was the Great Plague of Justinian, which broke out in 542 AD.

The British historian Edward Gibbon analyzed in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that "the triple scourge of war, plague and famine befell Justinian's subjects at the same time; The apparent decline in population has been a great stain on his reign, and this decline has not yet fully recovered in some of the best parts of the planet. The British historian Arnold Jones also pointed out in his History of the Late Roman Empire on the history of Justinian's time: "Perhaps the most influential disaster of this period on the empire was the plague. ”

In the expansion of colonialism in modern Europe, the plague played a large role in "aiding the scourge of abuse". With only a few hundred people, the Spanish colonists completely conquered the Aztec and Inca empires. Soon, the Indians almost fell into genocide. The indigenous peoples were vulnerable to the germs that the colonists brought to the New World.

After this event, the indigenous people of the New World died in large numbers, which caused an extreme shortage of the working population. Colonists plundered black slaves from Africa and sold them to the American continent, hence the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. This criminal slave trade has lasted for more than two centuries. One of the direct causes of this system was the near extinction of Native Americans due to the spread of the plague.

China News Agency: You once said, "The plague is a disaster for mankind. But because of this disaster, it will prompt those who are still alive to think and explore somewhat. "What positive effects or revelations did the plague bring?

Wu Bin: Hegel once said that "evil" has also become a force that moves history forward. Objectively, the plague has played a positive role in the development and progress of human society.

In Hong Kong, the "Black Death" beak mask attracts many expats and citizens to buy them during Halloween. The beak mask was a protective mask used by physicians treating the "Black Death" during the European Middle Ages. Photo by Zhang Wei

First, the plague was an important factor in triggering social change. The Black Death of the 14th century claimed almost a quarter of Europe's population, causing a drastic reduction in the labor force, economic decay, cities and land desolation. But it also brought about a redistribution of social wealth, especially land, and a consequent significant change and reorganization of social class structures.

Since post-pandemic economic reconstruction requires a large number of labor, changes in labor supply and demand have prompted workers to generally demand higher wage income. The feudal aristocracy could not meet this demand, but instead took measures to restrict and suppress laborers, which led to the intensification of social contradictions and social conflicts, which in turn triggered many uprisings of peasants and urban laborers. These uprisings promoted the social changes in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages, and opened the prelude to Europe's transition from the Middle Ages to modern capitalism.

In 1665, the "Black Death" broke out in London, England. Photo courtesy of Visual China

Second, the outbreak of large-scale plague has changed people's thinking and culture to a certain extent. In the era of backward scientific development and lack of human knowledge, people's understanding and prevention methods of plague are limited, and sudden disasters are prone to cause widespread psychological panic. As a result, various supernatural, mystical prophecies and promises gave psychological comfort, and the religion developed rapidly. For example, after the "Plague of Justinian", Christianity was expanded like never before, monasteries developed on a large scale, and the ideological dominance of Christian theology was established.

Also a great plague, the ravages of the Black Death in the 14th century prompted people to think further about the value of human life. People's ideas gradually freed themselves from theological constraints, and humanist ideas began to germinate and develop, opening the curtain of the Renaissance movement and further escaping the Christian theocracy, and transitioning to the Age of Enlightenment, which exalted human reason.

Celebration in Venice, Italy. The festival commemorates the end of the Great Plague in the 16th century. Photo courtesy of Visual China

Finally, the plague accelerated changes in people's lifestyles. Cholera in the early 19th century directly promoted public health campaigns in Europe and around the world. Today's urban water supply and drainage system, urban waste disposal method, housing hygiene standard design, etc., have all been created by this. For this reason, cholera has been called the "great health innovator".

The epidemic of the plague cost mankind dearly, but it did not destroy human society. In every phased victory against the plague, mankind also seized the opportunity for the development of civilization.

Initially, people had only fear and helplessness about the plague, and could only seek solace in prayer and pray for the nightmare to pass. Since then, people have gradually realized the contagiousness of the plague and have begun to adopt scientific and effective methods such as isolation. With the development of modern science, human beings have invented antibiotics, vaccines and other "weapons" to fight the plague.

Human nature is fragile and strong; is small and great; It is cowardly and courageous. In the battle against the plague, in the end, courage defeated cowardice, greatness overshadowed smallness, so that there was the brilliance of human nature and the progress of civilization.

The battle between human beings and the plague has never ended, and in the face of a complex and changeable environment and new infectious diseases, the struggle against the plague continues. In the protracted battle, the strength and wisdom of human beings continue to increase, and more importantly, human beings always have great courage to fight for survival. (End)

Respondent Profile:

Wu Bin, a scholar and researcher of history and culture, is currently an evergreen scholar at Beijing University of Foreign Chinese and a distinguished professor at the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture. He has served as Vice President of Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, President of Shenyang Palace Museum, Vice President of China Society for the History of Sino-Foreign Relations, and Vice Chairman of Liaoning Provincial Federation of Literature. Mainly engaged in the research of Chinese cultural history and the history of Sino-foreign cultural exchanges, he has published dozens of books, including "Four Hundred Years of Shenyang Imperial Palace - A Cultural History of a Narrative Body", "A Complete History of the Silk Road", "The Power of Civilization - The World Influence of Chinese Civilization", "Outline of the History of the Inheritance of Chinese Traditional Culture", "New History of the Overseas Dissemination of Chinese Culture", "The Cultivation of Chinese Civilization", "The Plague and the Process of Human Civilization", etc.