Frank Carlson Library

While the coronavirus COVID-19 changed the world in 2020, it still isn't the largest and deadliest pandemic in history. That title is held by the Plague.

"The deadly outbreak of plague known as the Great Mortality, which struck Europe in the mid 1300s and raged for four centuries, wiped out more than 25 million people in the course of just two years. With its vicious onslaught, life changed for millions of people almost instantaneously. Deadly pandemics have always been a part of life, from the Great Mortality of the Middle Ages, to the Spanish Influenza outbreak of 1918, to the eruption of COVID-19...

This book describes the diseases of the Middle Ages (500-1500 A.D.); the medicines; and the work of apothecaries, doctors, surgeons, and religious men and women in hospitals.