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It is a virus and it is very much in the news, for now.

The word “Corona” in botany signifies an appendage of thecorolla in some flowers, the link between the corolla and the stamens, with oneexample being the flowering daffodil.

 In astronomy it isexplained as the halo or luminous circle around one of the heavenly bodies(manifesting in the aureola seen in a total eclipse of the sun.

 Virus is a noun, meaningpossibly any virulent substance developed by morbid processes within an animalbody and capable of transmitting a specific disease such as smallpox.

Probably many of us had never heard much of this until it waslinked to a new word for many, “coronavirus”.

I leave it to the news and the experts to determine how longthis word will be passed around the world. Because of this, serious concernsare being voiced about the potential of what has long been called an“epidemic”.

There is a branch of study of epidemics, which relates to theactual science developed for treating of those diseases singled out becausethey have caught the public’s attention when a disease attacks several peopleat the same time and in close succession.

This study of epidemics is called epidemiology. This studybasically covers that feature which is seen in epidemic type diseases whichapparently can have the common property of spreading in a community. One reasonmy own limited research gives can be because of a group of infective ormicroparasitic maladies.

Diseases of this nature, are well known, recurring and onlybecome what might be called “an epidemic disease” such as influenza, when itspreads the entire world over and the word pandemic sometimes comes into use.

Again, the epidemic disease has features, distinctive, such as bacterialor protozoan characteristics. This includes for example, cholera, dysentery andeven the plague. Also: bubonic plague, typhus and smallpox.

The spread is traced of course to a moving population.

One epidemic disease is traced to an animal parasite, such asfound in yellow fever, and malaria.

The history of malaria is an old one, with an agent of spreadingit being a mosquito, Anopheles.

The ingredients which create a spread of such things include: avirus; a susceptible population; free intercommunication between sick andsusceptible people; and it becomes more complicated after that.

Things such as measles, whooping-cough, and even diphtheria havebeen serious problems in some areas of the world before they were brought intocontrol.

History records an influenza epidemic of 1890 going around theworld in about four years’ time. Another was the plague epidemic from the year1895 to the year 1902.

Good news one would say, is that there have been no severeextensive epidemics in the United States other than bouts of influenza for anumber of years, and the chances of spreading severe epidemics in the modernday world, has been decreasing due to application of laws of modern hygiene andalso procedures developed by continually acquired knowledge about immunity.

Because of the vigilance of those involved in fighting thiscurrent outbreak of disease, hopefully this will soon become just anotherstatistic in the history of mankind.