Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Faculty of Medical History and Medical Ethics.
Przegl Epidemiol. 2020;74(2):169-179. doi: 10.32394/pe.74.14.
Communicable diseases have accompanied humanity since the beginning of its existence. The first descriptions of diseases appeared in the 8th century B.C. in the Iliad, Homer. Epidemics of communicable diseases were often described in social context by poets, historians, and chroniclers. Medicine as a science until the 19th century could not provide answers concerning the aetiology of epidemic diseases or propose therapies with measurable benefits. For centuries the fight against epidemics was the duty of administrative services. Quarantine, isolation (including forced isolation), sanitary cordons, and disinfection procedures involving the moxibustion, burning of objects, clothing and bodies, etc. were introduced very early on. The knowledge of practical measures taken during repeated epidemics of various communicable diseases in Europe laid the foundations for the development of social medicine in the 18th century. In the 19th century, methods such as statistics, comparison of patient groups, mathematics and others were introduced to assess the effectiveness of prophylactic and therapeutic measures. In the 19th century it became possible to distinguish a new science - epidemiology. The missing element was the so-called "bacteriological breakthrough". After the discovery and description of bacteria, there was a tumultuous development of bacteriology, vaccines were created and huge financial resources were allocated to bacteriological institutes. After extensive use of chemotherapeutics and antibiotics, it turned out in the mid-20th century that the mortality from communicable diseasesis statistically lower in some countries than in others.In the 1940s, population-based cardiological studies using epidemiological patterns were introduced in the United States, and in the 1950s epidemiological congresses worldwide accepted that it was reasonable for epidemiology to investigate the occurrence and causes of communicable and non-communicable diseases. In Poland, in 1964, at the 4th Congress of the Polish Society of Epidemiologists and Doctors of Infectious Diseases in Cracow, a decision was made to extend epidemiological studies to non-communicable diseases.
传染病自人类诞生之初就伴随着人类。最早的疾病描述出现在公元前 8 世纪的荷马的《伊利亚特》中。传染病的流行经常被诗人、历史学家和编年史家从社会背景中描述。直到 19 世纪，医学作为一门科学，还无法解释传染病的病因，也无法提出具有显著疗效的治疗方法。几个世纪以来，抗击传染病一直是行政部门的职责。检疫、隔离（包括强制隔离）、卫生警戒线和消毒程序，如艾灸、焚烧物品、衣物和身体等，很早就被采用了。在欧洲，对各种传染病反复发作的实践措施的了解，为 18 世纪社会医学的发展奠定了基础。19 世纪，引入了统计学、患者群体比较、数学等方法来评估预防和治疗措施的效果。19 世纪，有可能区分出一门新的科学——流行病学。缺少的是所谓的“细菌学突破”。细菌被发现和描述后，细菌学经历了一段狂热的发展，疫苗被研制出来，大量资金被投入到细菌学研究所。在广泛使用化学疗法和抗生素后，人们在 20 世纪中期发现，在一些国家，传染病的死亡率在统计上低于其他国家。20 世纪 40 年代，美国引入了基于人群的心脏病学研究，采用流行病学模式，20 世纪 50 年代，全球流行病学大会接受了这样一个观点，即流行病学有理由调查传染病和非传染病的发生和原因。在波兰，1964 年，在克拉科夫举行的第 4 届波兰流行病学家和传染病医生学会大会上，决定将流行病学研究扩展到非传染病。
