Historical plagues taught people of the affected areas much about the incompetency of experts in the realm of medicine, politics, theology, etc., but I’m not sure Americans have learned much.

When major plagues finally and mysteriously left a devastated country, interest in religious matters decreased because many clergymen died, and so many prayers were unanswered. Of course, God-haters have used unanswered prayer as an excuse for unbelief since the beginning of time. J. L. Cloudsley-Thompson wrote, “It is beyond the bounds of possibility for anyone to estimate the influence of epidemic disease on religion and philosophy. Nor can we clearly assess its influence on the material course of human history.”

The Greek historian Polybius (204-122 B.C.), known as the most reliable ancient historian, reported the whole of Greece had been visited in his time by childlessness and a general decline of the population resulting in the emptying of the cities and the failure of the land to render its produce. He said men refused to marry or, if they married, refused to have children. If they had children, they refused to rear them. He said that men went out of their way to be ostentatious, avaricious, and indolent.

Sounds rather contemporaneous.

Several historians believe the Greeks fell to the Romans because of malaria attacks, not marching armies. Malaria was rampant throughout the Greek world by 400 B.C. The malarial parasite killed infants, weakened unsuspecting children, forced the vacating of the best farmlands, and helped reduce Greeks into listless, lazy, and licentious people. As a result, the power and glory of ancient Greece became a mocking memory.

Some historians, in my opinion, give too much credit to the mosquito for the fall of Greece. It was a significant factor, but men must always be held accountable for their actions. Today, a man gets drunk, kills a carload of people, and pleads that he was not in control and should not be held responsible. Others tell us that sugar impaired their ability, and they lost control and should not be accountable for the results they produced. No doubt, there is some truth to those claims. The same was true in Greece. Malaria did make them listless, therefore, lazy, but they chose to be licentious.

In our time, duped, deceived, defiant, and destructive youth are dedicated to destroying our way of life. They are not innocent do-gooders but are devoted to changing our liberty-based government to a Socialist/Communist system. They are the enemy. Others are using the COVID threat to accomplish the same transformation: America should be dismantled or destroyed.

Significant change is happening in America with more changes ahead of us, and if we lose our freedom, the reasons won’t be that important.

The Greeks slowly lost their brilliance, which was thought to be the quintessence of original thought. This degeneration is evident in their art and literature and other areas of creativity. W.H.S. Jones wrote, “Their initiative vanished; they ceased to create and began to comment. Patriotism, with rare exceptions, became an empty name, for few had the high spirit and energy to translate into action man’s duty to the state. Vacillation, indecision, fitful outbursts of harmful activity followed by cowardly depression, selfish cruelty, and criminal weakness are characteristics of the public life of Greece from the struggle with Macedonia to the final conquest by the armies of Rome.”

Sounds familiar.

Francesco de Sanctis, Angelo Celli, and others taught that disease has altered the world’s condition more than wars. Ancient Greece probably would not have fallen into the hands of Rome if it had not been for malaria. Are we not fools if we don‘t consider the same or similar results from possible contagious diseases and biological terrorism we face today?

We can now add AIDS, flu, Ebola, and the Chinese Communist coronavirus to the scourges that have smitten mankind, taking their dreary toll. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveals 36 million people have died of AIDS! The death toll from Ebola climbed to about 11,000 instead of the 1.4 million predicted by the CDC! Of course, the experts have been wrong numerous times during these COVID days. Even the notorious Bubonic Plague (the Black Death) that wiped out at least fifty million people in Europe during the 1300s has raised its vicious head, especially in Western states such as Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, and California.

Many medical experts tell us another COVID wave has hit us, but we should not worry if we have been vaccinated. However, other medical experts tell us 45,000 vaccinated Americans have died from the COVID vaccines, and that number has been hidden to cover the behinds of experts!

Has COVID taught us to be cautious about depending on the experts who can be weak, willful, whacky, and wrong? And in the case of Dr. Fauci—wearisome. Have we recognized the danger of repressing, ridiculing, and rejecting differing opinions? Are we willing to admit the media has become the enemy or at least is biased and self-serving?

About 85% of the COVID deaths could have been prevented if physicians had prescribed established inexpensive home treatment before the disease took control of patients. Wait until that truth reaches the bereaved relatives of the preventable dead!

The COVID fiasco should convince everybody of the dissension, danger, and deaths from politicizing medicine.

If we don’t learn from pandemic history, we are doomed to repeat it, and it is happening as I write and you read this warning.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for U.S.A. Today for 8 years. Boys authored 19 books, the most recent,  Reflections of a Lifetime Fundamentalist: No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets! The eBook is available at Amazon.com for $4.99. Other titles at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don  Boys, Ph.D., and visit his blog.  Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support  his work with a donation.)

Fanatics in India “actually believe and are taking cow dung baths to prevent or cure themselves from sustaining the deadly virus.” And the Evening Standard reported, “a Hindu group in India was hosting a cow urine drinking party as a means to immunize themselves from the coronavirus.”

Of course, Americans have their fools as well. One famous televangelist (worth $760 million) “would like people to believe that coronavirus can be cured through their TV sets, so long as those televisions are tuned into his show.” The Evangelical preacher Kenneth Copeland urged viewers to “put their hands on their screens and be cured of the coronavirus.” Copeland, who occasionally stumbles on the truth destroys any credibility with the “name it and claim it” teaching and his emphasis on money. While people have a right to give to whomever, it is usually the poor who keep the likes of Copeland in expensive suits, living in mansions, and flying around the world in plush private jets.

The above reactions are old news for old plagues. Men have not changed and they react the same way under similar circumstances during all ages.

When bubonic plague reached Paris in 1348, Philip VI called in his top medical people from the University of Paris to give him some answers relating to the origin of the pestilence that was ravaging the city. His learned academicians decided that the answer was astrology! Their explanation was so reasonable that anyone would accept it–anyone, that is, whose I.Q. equaled, but did not exceed his hat size.

The esteemed professors informed his Majesty that there had been a conjunction of Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter in the house of Aquarius on March 20, 1345–at 1:00 P.M. However, they did not indicate if that was Eastern Standard Time or Central Time. They told the king that the conjunction of Saturn and Mars meant death and destruction, and the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter released pestilence into the air. This was a Royal Con Job, and the king should have had a―You‘ve got to be pulling my royal leg look—but they assured him that the warm and humid Jupiter sucked up the water and nefarious vapors from the earth. Then, naturally, Mars, known to be hot and dry, ignited a fire.

Of course.

Those professionals were certified experts! The big surprise is that the king and his court did not fall down to the floor holding their sides with hysterical laughter; however, we must remember that it was an age of superstition and ignorance. At least the king got the message that Paris was not the place to spend that spring and summer. The Paris Medical Association had decided on the origins of the plague, so they could now give expert advice about how to escape being cut down like grass before the scythe.

The experts told the king, not to eat fat meats, poultry, and olive oil. The learned doctors told their patients not to sleep past dawn, don‘t bathe, and forego sexual intercourse since it could be fatal! During those days, quackery was part and parcel of most of the disciplines. The quacks wore academic gowns and were a part of the intellectual brotherhood—just like today. Moreover, as today, no one dared say, “But that‘s quackery.” After all, one might be accused of being an independent thinker! Horrors!

The people spent their hard-earned money for pills, potions, and preservatives, and in a later plague, infected folk sought a cure by bathing in urine collected from people who had eaten cabbage!

When it was decided that the Black Death was airborne, they were told to visit, even live in foul-smelling sewers among the rats that carried the disease! Victims would often bathe in urine several times a day and drank a glass of urine. Others cut open their sores and applied a paste made from tree resins, flower roots, and human feces. I don’t think their medical plans covered such an alternative treatment.

Dr. Thomas Vicary, the surgeon to Henry VIII, invented the very popular treatment called the Vicary Method. With a live chicken, he would shave its butt and strap it to their swollen lymph nodes. Then, when the chicken got sick, they would wash it and repeat the process until only the chicken or victim was dead or alive.

During most plagues, it was commonly believed that a lucky charm would keep the plague away. Dr. George Thomson, a famous physician, wore a dead toad around his neck.

I assume Dr. Thomson was board certified.

Pope Clement VI declared that all people who died of the plague were forgiven of all their sins so they could enter Heaven. Since no man on the face of the earth has such ability, the Pope gave the plague victims false hope. Admittance to Heaven comes only through faith in Christ.

Recently, the Catholic Church granted forgiveness of sins to the faithful who died of the Chinese coronavirus. The decree also covers healthcare workers and relatives who care for their sick family members. To qualify for forgiveness, one must read the Bible “for at least half an hour.” Pope Francis, like Pope Clement VI, assumed authority he does not have and gave dying people and relatives a false hope.

I don’t know if Clement and Francis were fools, frauds, or fanatics, but I do know their statements were false, and the coronavirus races on.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)