ABSTRACT
The greatest single epidemic in human history was the influenza epidemic that killed 21 million people at the end of the First World War in 1918. The Indian population of Hispaniola declined from around 8 million, when Christopher Columbus arrived in A.D. 1492, to zero by 1535. Measles reached Fiji with a Fijian returning from a visit to Australia in 1875, and proceeded to kill about one-quarter of all Fijians then alive. The issue of open sewage and disease is particularly interesting as there are many stories within Aboriginal history that talk about human excretion having to be probably managed due to a fear of 'becoming sick' and the consequences if not probably treated. One of the biggest impacts on the Australian Aboriginal population was in the City of Yarra in Victoria with up to 'sixty per cent of the local Wurundjeri population lost to disease'.
