ABSTRACT
As a medical reality for human communities throughout most of history, epidemic diseases have provoked a particular terror in people as a result of their elusive causes and the horrific sufferings they produce. Understandably, societies have interpreted plague and pestilence as divine punishments for human misdeeds. After the fact, they seek to identify and demonize the pariahs whom they can blame for the epidemic. Moreover, apocalyptic prophecies typically threaten epidemic diseases as punishments for violating divine laws. Not coincidentally, millennialist movements have been initiated by incidents of such plagues.
