key: cord-0035183-8qh4zsaz authors: Hubálek, Zdenek; Rudolf, Ivo title: A History of Zoonoses and Sapronoses and Research into Them date: 2010-11-10 journal: Microbial Zoonoses and Sapronoses DOI: 10.1007/978-90-481-9657-9_3 sha: 5050383c33d0da46c8b95c416b165745f62a812f doc_id: 35183 cord_uid: 8qh4zsaz The history of these diseases and of their study is given in a brief chronological review of the most important events (important epidemics) and milestones of their study (relevant microbiological discoveries). In some historical data it is difficult to differentiate between the year of discovery and the year of its publication. 224 BC, China: the first major epidemic of plague reported. First century, SUSRUTA (a Brahmin priest in India) and COLUMELLA (an educated Roman farmer): the spread of fevers is caused by "biting flies". 100, RUFUS from Ephesus: a description of bubonic plague in Libya, Egypt and Syria (here was plague known since third century BC). 541-546: 1st plague pandemic ("Justinian", Byzantine Caesar) started in Egypt, continued in Palestine, Syria, Constantinople, and engulfed the whole known world including Europe (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, England), central Asia and China (an estimated 100 million persons succumbed out of about 142 million contracting the disease). 1321, Florencia: "Statuti sanitari": rule of the city how to behave when there occurs an epidemic. 1346-1352, 2nd plague pandemic ("The Black Death") in Europe -it started already in about 1330 in central Asia, where almost entire populations of Tatars and Saracens had succumbed. During the siege of the Genoan fortress of Caffa (today's Theodosia) in the Crimea, Tatars catapulted the cadavers of their soldiers that had succumbed to plague within (the first "biological warfare"); Genoan merchants escaped the fortress but spread the plague to Constantinople and Messina. The ensuing pandemic engulfed the whole Italy, Dalmatia, France, England and Norway in 1348; then Germany and Moravia in 1349; and Poland, Russia Fifteenth century, a new epidemic of plague in Germany, France and Russia. 1490 1647-1648, an extensive epidemic of yellow fever in the Caribbean -Little Antilles (Barbados → St. Cristof → Guadeloupe), Yucatan and Cuba (e.g., in Havana onethird of citizens died); the disease was imported from West Africa during the slave trade (viraemic slaves and infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes on ships). 1648-1649, Prague: a major epidemic of plague in the city besieged by Swedish soldiers at the end of the Thirty-Year's War. 1653-1654, plague in southern, western and northern (Sweden) Europe with a great number of victims (e.g., London 60,000; Genova 50,000; Amsterdam 50,000). 1675-1684, another extensive epidemic of plague in Europe (central) spreading from Poland to Moravia, Bohemia (13,000 victims in Prague alone), Austria, Germany etc.: schools and churches were closed and public religious services forbidden; magistri sanitatis (directors of health) and plague regulations (including obligatory notification of sick and dead persons) were installed in many towns; preventive measures were fixed for physicians, priests−confessors, and friars attending patients and dying persons; quarantine was imposed on foci of infection. 1886, BRUCE: isolation of the agent (Brucella melitensis) from victims with "Maltese fever" and its experimental transmission to monkeys. 1886, an epidemic of yellow fever in the USA (20,000 victims). 1888, GÄRTNER: Salmonella enteritidis is a common agent of the human and cattle disease (58 human patients after eating meat from a diseased cattle = first description of food-borne human salmonellosis). 1904-1905, DUTTON and TODD (Kenya) , KOCH (east Africa), ROSS and MILNE (Uganda) elucidated the aetiology of African recurrent fever (spirochete Borrelia duttoni) and proved experimentally its vector (Ornithodoros moubata, including TOT) and susceptibility of monkeys to this disease (Dutton and Todd infected themselves at autopsy of the monkeys, and Dutton died due to the infection); this disease had already been known to Livingstone (as "human tick disease") in 1857. 1905, ZAMMIT isolated Brucella melitensis from goat milk. 1906, RICKETTS discovered the agent of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and described its transmission (including TOT) by Dermacentor spp. ticks. 1906, BANCROFT found that the mosquito Aedes aegypti is the only vector of dengue. 1906, DARLING described histoplasmosis as protozoan disease (an error, cf. 1934) . 1907, CHAGAS found that the "kissing bug" Triatoma infestans can transmit Trypanosoma cruzi. 1908, NICOLLE and MANCEAUX discovered Toxoplasma gondii. 1908 , AFZELIUS described specific skin lesions called erythema (chronicum) migrans in some patients after attack of the tick Ixodes ricinus on them in Sweden (Lyme borreliosis -cf. 1982 and 1983) . 1918-1920, the pandemic of "Spanish flu" caused death of at least 21 million people (the aetiological agent originated with great probability from an avian influenza virus). 1920, STOKES passaged the yellow fever agent. 1920, FRANCIS found that the agent of tularaemia in ground squirrels, hares and rabbits is transmissible to human. 1923, SPENCER and PARKER found evidence that the vector of RMSF is the tick Dermacentor andersoni. 1924, SPENCER prepared a phenolized vaccine against RMSF. 1924, PARKER, SPENCER and FRANCIS: D. andersoni tick is also vector of tularaemia. 1925, RAMON and DESCOMBEY prepared anatoxin (vaccine) 1955-1957, WORK and TRAPIDO studied a big outbreak among monkeys in Kyasanur forest (southwest India), followed by an epidemic in humans; the agent was Flavivirus KFD, isolated also from ticks Haemaphysalis spinigera. 1957, SKRABALO and DEANOVIC described first case of human babesiosis (caused by Babesia divergens, Slovenia). 1958, PARODI, CASALS, BUCKLEY et al. described an epidemic of Argentine haemorrhagic fever with a high fatality rate, and isolated the agent (arenavirus Junin). Ixodes persulcatus) in Siberia; laboratory infection and untimely death of three investigators WYCKOFF: isolation of VEE virus from horses in Venezuela MÜLLER discovered insecticide effects of DDT (dichlordiphenyltrichloethane), a compound synthetized by ZIEDLER already in 1874 HEATLEY prepared purified penicillin (cf. 1929), industrial production started in 1941 SMORODINTSEV demonstrated viral aetiology of HFRS HIRST introduced haemagglutination test and HIT in virological diagnostics (influenza, etc MEYER described two human cases of ornithosis acquired from a sick feral pigeon ASHBURN discovered adiasporomycosis (emmonsiosis) in North-American rodents. 1943-1944: KIMURA and HOTTA isolated dengue virus. 1943-1944, WAKSMAN, UGIE and SCHATZ discovered streptomycin WOODWARD synthetized quinine isolated viruses of pappataci fever (SFN, SFS) from the blood of patients and detected the vector demonstrated experimental transmission of CTF virus by ixodid ticks. 1946-1947, CHUMAKOV et al. explained viral aetiology of Crimean haemorrhagic fever Center for Disease Control (CDC) founded in Atlanta, USA (renamed as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention JELLISON discovered the agent of rickettsial pox and its vector (Allodermanyssus mites) DANIELOVÁ isolatedŤahyňa bunyavirus from Aedes mosquitoes in east Slovakia (the very first human pathogenic mosquito-borne virus isolated in Europe) SIMPSON isolated the agent of Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF virus) a big outbreak of ONN fever in Uganda (2 million persons affected), the alphavirus isolated an epidemic of severe haemorragic fever Valtice fever") in south Moravia (Czechland) are caused byŤahyňa bunyavirus Oropouche fever in Brazil, outbreak with 11,000 patients (but first cases revealed already in 1955) 1962-1964, a big outbreak of VEE in Venezuela and Columbia KUNS and WEBB isolated the agent of Bolivian haemorrhagic fever (arenavirus Machupo) from humans and rodents LaCrosse bunyavirus from the brain of a child killed by California encephalitis CHUMAKOV isolated the agent of Crimean haemorrhagic fever in Russia (CCHF virus) three clusters of Marburg haemorrhagic fever cases (31 patients, 7 died) in pharmaceutical laboratories in Germany (Behringwerke AG in Marburg, and also Frankfurt) and in Serbia (Beograd) that were acquired from rhesus monkeys imported from Uganda in 1967. 1969, BUCKLEY, CASALS and DOWNS isolated Lassa arenavirus from the blood of a missionary during an epidemic in Nigeria The virus was originally isolated from ill macaques by VON MAGNUS DOHERTY: a large outbreak of Ross River fever in Australia (but the virus was first isolated from mosquitoes in 1959, and then a number of human cases were reported up to Campylobacter jejuni causes epidemic bacterial gastroenteritis in humans discovery of simian B herpesvirus, fatal for humans but benign for monkeys found that Cryptosporidium parvum caused acute diarrhoea in humans (an epidemic with some 400 an epidemic of swine influenza among army recruits in Fort Dix, New Jersey (USA), the virus isolated; in a follow-up, 135 million USD were released for the US national vaccination campaign (however, Guillain-Barré syndrome developed in at least 1,500 of 40 million vaccinees) an outbreak of atypical pneumonia called "Legionnaires' disease" in a Philadelphia hotel LEE, LEE and JOHNSON isolated the agent of HFRS in Korea and elsewhere extensive outbreaks of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Zaire and Sudan, and recovery of the agent (a new filovirus) detected the agent of nephropathia epidemica in Finland 1979-1980, an extensive epidemic of Ross River fever in Polynesia 2nd big epidemic of Oropouche fever in Amazonia PRUSINER: infectious agents in spongiform encephalopathies are specific proteins enteropathogenic Escherichia coli O157:H7 was the cause of epidemic haemorrhagic enterocolitis (hamburgers, USA) and of haemolytic-uraemic syndrome clarified the aetiology of Lyme disease (an ixodid tick-borne spirochete), observed in Old Lyme (Connecticut, USA) since 1975, and clinically described as rheumatic arthritis in isolated the agent of Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) isolated a lymphotropic retrovirus (lentivirus HIV) from patients with AIDS, a syndrome described in 1981. 1985, MULLIS introduced PCR in microbiology isolated the agent of HFRS in Serbia (Dobrava hantavirus) haemorrhagic fever in Venezuela isolated the causative agent of cat-scratch fever isolated the agent of human monocytic ehrlichiosis an epidemic of lethal pulmonary syndrome among Navaha Indians in the "Four Corners" region (southwestern USA), and isolation of the agent described human tick-borne granulocytic anaplasmosis, and detection of the agent (Anaplasma phagocytophilum) in Ixodes scapularis ticks in USA reported occurrence of a new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob prion disease (vCJD) that is pathogenic for man (since 1994) and linked to the epizootic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy SIT and BING isolated a new Nipah paramyxovirus during a big outbreak (pigs, humans) in Malaysia a very surprising epidemic of West Nile encephalitis in New York after an importation of WNV (probably from Israel), with a following spread over whole North (later also Central and South) America; closely before this event, big WN outbreaks in southern Russia and Israel an extensive epidemic of SARS in southeast Asia, exported later to other countries (Canada etc a major epidemic of avian influenza (H5N1) in Asia, with a following wave-like rapid spread to Europe and Africa; the strain also infected 504 humans and caused 299 deaths (WHO to date the largest epidemic of chikungunya fever on islands in Indian Ocean (Réunion Island etc.), in India etc a major outbreak of Q fever in the Netherlands (at least 3,500 human cases up to the first outbreak of chikungunya fever in Europe (imported from India): northeastern Italy (Ravenna and surroundings), with about 334 suspected cases rodent-borne Ljungan picornavirus was found to cause intrauterine foetal death and CNS malformations new arenavirus Lujo killed several persons H1N1 swine influenza: as of