Miasmas: Why people thought 'bad air' spread disease
MIASMAS or bad air was once thought to be the cause of the spread of deadly diseases and viruses with little able to stop it.
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With the help of modern science and technology we know how the current coronavirus spreads, lasts, and lives outside of a host body. Models in 3D show the extent to which air particles carrying coronavirus can spread from person to person – a vital image in helping both the public and authorities to better understand how its spread works.
Earlier this month, scientists in Finland released models showing how coronavirus is transported through extremely small airborne aerosol particles when a person coughs, sneezes or talks.
Their findings, they explained, "emphasise the importance of avoiding busy indoor spaces" during the COVID-19 pandemic.
So cutting-edge were the models that researchers were able to pinpoint the amount of time it takes for coronavirus to spread into the surrounding area from a single cough – up to seven minutes.
Ville Vuorinen, assistant professor at Aalto University in Finland explained: "Someone infected by the coronavirus can cough and walk away but then leave behind extremely small aerosol particles carrying the coronavirus.”
Such a model has allowed us to no longer guess how and to what extent a virus' spread stretches, and to implement measures that will reduce the risk of passing coronavirus on.
This has only become the case in just under the last 200 years.
A popular explanation throughout the medical world for centuries – thought to have first been documented in the first century BC – was the now obsolete medical theory of Miasmas.
Scientists in history held that diseases such as cholera, chlamydia, smallpox, or the plague were caused by a noxious form of “bad air” they called a miasma.
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The theory was accepted from Europe to China.
Medical professionals proposed that diseases were the product of environmental factors such as contaminated water, foul air, and poor hygienic conditions.
Diseases as a result of these conditions were not passed between individuals, but would affect those living in such areas.
Miasmas were also identified by a “foul smell” – likely explained by the squalid context in which people were living.
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In China, the miasmas were thought to originate in the southern Chinese mountains, where they believed insect waste polluted the air, the fog, and the water.
Despite being superseded by the germ theory of disease five years previous, the explanation was initially attributed to Montreal’s 1885 smallpox epidemic, its worst virus crisis in history.
In an interview during the 2010 documentary, Outbreak: Anatomy of a Plague, Dr Marcel Cadotte, head of pathology at Hôtel Dieu de Montreal explained beliefs surrounding miasmas and the outbreak.
He said: “That was during a time, back in 1885, when medicine was not nearly as advanced as it is today.
“During that era they referred to ‘miasmas’.
“They said there was ‘bad air’ called miasmas.
“And a lot of diseases that could be transmitted from one person to another were said to be caused by these miasmas.”
The blaming of miasmas on the outbreak coincided with Hôtel Dieu’s hospital board decision to send all patients home to disinfect the hospital and prevent the spread of smallpox, as two patients had died from the virus.
With many now on the streets, going about their daily business, potentially carrying the virus unknowingly, smallpox spread like wildfire.
In the same documentary, Michael Bliss, an historian said: “This turned out to be a really disastrous decision.
“In sending home people from Hôtel Dieu, who were contaminated with smallpox, you then move smallpox onto the streets of Montreal.
“Now it was abroad in the city.”