Abstract
In a sense, the world history is also the history of epidemics and pandemics that have caused huge numbers of deaths. Regardless of all positive advances brought about by vaccines and other scientific, medical and technological interventions and innovations, historical testimonies demonstrate that human vulnerability, despair and ways of dealing with disease and death, and - although they differ from one person to another- basic human reactions in the face of epidemics and death have not greatly changed for at least two thousand and five hundred years. This article deals with the testimonies of first-hand witnesses of the Athenian Plague (B.C.E. 430); Justinian Plague (541-542); Black Death, or the Great Plague (1347-1351); the Great Plague of London (1665-1666); the Plague of Morocco (1799), and the Spanish Flu (1918-1920). It shows that epidemics occurring in different times and under different conditions, by and large, lead to similar and comparable behaviour patterns.