page_title: 1510 influenza pandemic
section_title: Asia
hierarchical_section_title: 1510 influenza pandemic / Asia
caption_attribution_description: English: Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Sea. Battista Agnese, PORTOLAN ATLAS (Italy ca. 1550) Call Number: HM 10 Folio: ff. 10v-11 Description: Eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Sea.
context_page_description: In 1510, an acute respiratory disease emerged in Asia before spreading through North Africa and Europe during the first chronicled, inter-regional flu pandemic generally recognized by medical historians and epidemiologists. Influenza-like illnesses had been documented in Europe since at least Charlemagne, with 1357's outbreak the first to be called influenza, but the 1510 flu pandemic is the first to be pathologically described following communication advances brought about by the printing press. Flu became more widely referred to as coqueluche and coccolucio in France and Sicily during this pandemic, variations of which became the most popular names for flu in early modern Europe. The pandemic caused significant disruption in government, church, and society with near-universal infection and a mortality rate of around 1%.
context_section_description: The 1510 flu is suspected of originating in East Asia, possibly China. Gregor Horst writes in Operum medicorum tombus primus (1661) that the disease came from Asia and spread along trade routes before attacking the Middle East and North Africa. German medical writer Justus Hecker suggested the 1510 influenza most likely came from Asia because of the historical nature of other influenzas to originate there in more recent pandemics.
caption: Influenza had spread in North Africa before arriving in Europe.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2003:01:13 16:01:21", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10709", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "6808", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "4673"}