The Plague of Civilization

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"Our greatest civilizations have always been destroyed by epidemic disease."

-- from 'Rant' by Chuck Palahniuk

Take a look at these examples:

Plague of Athens, 430 BC
A killer typhoid that kickassed almost the entire Greek civilization to grave.

Antonine Plague, 165-180 AD
Influenza throughout Italy, killed almost five million in all. Imagine during their sickness, that's a five million in a 'sneeze-choir'.

Plague of Justinian, circa 540-800 AD
Start in Pelusium Egypt, then to Constantinople. During the 300 years of infection, the plague successfully killed half of the population in both city.

The Black Death, start circa 1300 AD until the 18th century
This plague is single-handedly responsible for the deaths of almost 30 to 50 million Europeans during its infection. The Black Death wasn't a single plague attack like earlier cases, This pandemic is a series of smaller plague outbreaks that happened in various part of Asia and Europe, (numerous major cases including syphillis in France, the Plague of Boyolali London, etc) these series of events are perhaps the greatest plague outbreaks ever recorded in history. Beside the T-Virus in Resident Evil series. Little known was the fact that the plague started NOT in Europe, but in Asia -- it spread throughout Europe following the trade route of ship and caravan.

Syphillis (or the French Disease), 1497-1501
Actually this was also a part of Black Death epidemy (and outbreaking mostly in Europe, specifically in France), but since it is SYPHILLIS, I must give it a special place. This is SYPHILLIS and to list it under the account of Black Death plague only shrouded the great name of SYPHILLIS.

Smallpox, 1518 until 19th century
Believed to be brought by some European voyagers, the smallpox was spread quickly (and got its fame) among Native Americans, specifically in Mexico and Peru. This plague was suspected to be the cause of the extinction of entire Easter Island population -- except the giant face statue.

Cholera Pandemic, 1817-1823
Began in Calcutta and other parts of India, and quickly spread to the rest of South Asia, extending to Middle East, Russia and China, later the outbreak event in India was also translated into a movie by Michael Bay, titled Transformers 2: Love in The Times of Cholera (sorry, Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

Malaria, Rabies, bintitan , Anthrax, HIV/AIDS, Leper, kapalan , TBC, Typhus, gondongan , SARS, H1N1, late 1800s until 21st century.
Due to the amazing progress in scientific world and the advance of medical research, more virus/parasites/diseases are found during our era. Though plague outbreak seems to possess lesser threat to nowadays people in contrast to those in ancient times, still, we mustn't let down our guard. Because the pattern seems unnatural to me: those plague outbreaks seems like a stubborn reoccurring kind. They kept coming back like boomerang.

It's funny to see how the prophetic sayings on the opening of this note is actually true: every generation, every era of civilization must dealt with their own specific disease. As history records, epidemic disease had a long and intimate relationship with human civilization. Like pillow to bed, or chopsticks to Chinese food, diseases followed us, stalked us and ambushed us at most unpredictable time. Even fictional history and folklore also had its own story of plague outbreak, one of the most famous was probably God's curse upon Egypt as written in the Old Testament, the Book of Exodus.

Haunted by the reoccurring event of mass death caused by epidemic diseases, each era bears the burden to find the remedies and the cures of the problem so that the later generation can be saved from suffering the same fate. That's the plot that had been continuously played for almost two millennium of human civilization. See how we struggle to find the cure for AIDS, cancer, and everything? That's our burden, our curse. History repeats itself. The pattern resurface again and again. In the old days we got Mary Mallon, the first carrier for Typhoid, then in modern days we got Gaëtan Dugas, the first ever patient for AIDS (codenamed: Patient Zero). Start from unknown source, transmit itself to some carriers, then. Boom. Colossal plague outbreak.
Natural occurrence, or fabricated happenings? You decide. As the theists would put it, perhaps all these diseases were some kind of God-tests for mankind. (Oh, how I giggled for that explanation.) Or could it be some capitalist conspiracies to sell more vaccine, more medicine to the already-suffered victim? Sounds out of place, but I'm no conspiracy theorist, so I remain silent for this one. And if, indeed, our time would also be ended in terrible plague outbreak like earlier era (because, history repeats itself.) I hope we'll die in rabies epidemic, cause that's the closest thing we got to zombie apocalypse: everywhere people goes insane, biting and chewing random objects, screaming, running around. Hoho. So much fun :D