Invisible Danger From Afar: Times of India
Travels and globalization have long been linked to new diseases that contributed to the death of millions: In the 1330s, the bubonic plague traveled along trade routes from China to Crimea and Europe. After 1492, European explorers introduced diseases like smallpox and diphtheria to the Americas, ravaging native populations. Such diseases disrupted trade for a spell, but innovations and treatments also emerged and took the same parts. The practice of smallpox inoculation, or variolation, may have started in India before 1000 BCE, explains Nayan Chanda, founding editor of YaleGlobal. News of the treatment spread spread over the next centuries to Arabia, Persia, North Africa and Europe. The modern world benefits from rapid communications and globalized responses coordinated by the World Health Organization. – YaleGlobal
Invisible Danger From Afar: Times of India
Pandemics have long been tied to globalization and human travels, and globalized communications deliver cures and treatments
Saturday, May 2, 2020
Read the article from the Times of India about the long history of pandemics and travel.
Nayan Chanda is the founding editor of YaleGlobal Online and a US-based journalist who writes columns for TOI. Read an excerpt from his book Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers and Warriors Shaped Globalization.
The Times of India
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