Pandemics – the global spread of infectious diseases – seem to be making a comeback. In the Middle Ages we had the Black Death (plague), and after the first world war we had the Spanish flu. Tens of millions of people died from these diseases.
Then science began to get the upper hand, with vaccination eradicating smallpox, and polio nearly so. Antibiotics became available to treat bacterial infections, and more recently antivirals as well.
