Pandemics Quotes

“Thinking back on the pandemic in 1919, the bacteriologist Milton J. Rosenau wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “If we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the disease.”
― Christian W. McMillen, Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction

“For very often history is forgotten or rediscovered
only when we confront contemporary
epidemics and pandemics, and thus patterns from the past are related thoughtlessly.”
― Christian W. McMillen, Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction

“These lessons are not new; the history of epidemics and pandemics has been teaching them for centuries. That there seems to be no historical consciousness is frustrating, but not just because I am a historian. It is frustrating because it is wasteful and inefficient. It is also arrogant and naive - a lethal combination. It is naive to think that by simply learning lessons the future will be different and arrogant to suppose that those proffering the mea culpas are the enlightened ones finally seeing the mistakes of the past”
― Christian W. McMillen, Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction