Countrywide Epidemics as “Visits of the Horseman of Death” in Hungary

Bruckner, Éva (2020) Countrywide Epidemics as “Visits of the Horseman of Death” in Hungary. POLGÁRI SZEMLE: GAZDASÁGI ÉS TÁRSADALMI FOLYÓIRAT, 16 (Spec.). pp. 135-156. ISSN 1786-6553

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Abstract

For thousands of years Hungary has, for the most part, been a transit zone for other nations’ armies or a target of conquest. As a result, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine and Death were ravaging mostly at the same time. Among them, Death is “the deputy of hell”, which can destroy everything by diseases and epidemics. This study is a brief review of the infectious diseases which ravaged various regions in Hungary during the past centuries, followed by a more elaborate description of those that targeted the whole country: plague, cholera and Spanish flu. With the help of documents which have not been revealed so far, the study sheds light on interesting stories, like the way the plague helped the city of Pest to become the capital city, or how Hungarian doctors could successfully cure tuberculosis in the unique climate of the Tatra Mountains. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, cholera triggered a development in public healthcare and hygiene that still has its impacts felt to date. The coronavirus, which has hit us in the 21st century, is studied with a focus on its effects on our current society.

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