Mathematical Modeling in the Social and Life Sciences

CHAPTER 14

Epidemics

Swords and lances, arrows, machine guns, and even high explosives have had far less power over the fate of nations than the typhus louse, the plague flea, and the yellow-fever mosquito.

—Hans Zinsser

I. Introduction

A. Epidemics and History

The period of Greek history from the end of the Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great (roughly 480 to 325 B.C.) was critical to the development of Western civilization. The creative achievements of the Greeks of this time in art, literature, philosophy, science, mathematics, and political science exerted an influence on Western cultural history unequaled by any other people.

Foremost among the Greek communities of 2,500 years ago was the city-state of Athens. No other state rivaled the extent of Athens's empire or its wealth, power, and intellectual and cultural activity, and none possessed so pure a democracy. The “Golden Age” of Athens coincided closely with the reign of Pericles, the most dominating personality of his time, who rose to power in 469 B.C. while still in his early thirties. The Golden Age began to tarnish, however, with the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. The war, which lasted a quarter-century, was essentially a series of military struggles between Athens and Sparta, the other predominant city-state. Athens was primarily a sea power with a strong navy, but it had a weak army compared to the Spartans, who had a strong army but no major fleet of ships. Pericles's strategy was to withdraw ...