Sentence:  It was reserved for Christians to torture bread, the staff of life, bread for which children in whole districts wail, bread, the gift of pasture to the poor, bread, for want of which thousands of our fellow beings annually perish by famine; it was reserved for Christians to torture the material of bread by fire, to create a chemical and maddening poison, burning up the brain and brutalizing the soul, and producing evils to humanity, in comparison of which, war, <WSD>pestilence</WSD>, and famine, cease to be evils. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Any epidemic disease that is highly contagious, infectious, virulent and devastating.