How the word plague strikes fear and panic – from 1920s LA to modern-day Siberia

**Lead**

The word ‘plague’ has long functioned as more than a medical term; it is a cultural trigger, capable of igniting panic, stoking suspicion, and reshaping communities. In the 1920s, a small cluster of bubonic plague cases in Los Angeles set off a wave of fear that led to quarantine camps, property destruction, and racist scapegoating. Nearly a century later, outbreaks of the same disease in the remote Republic of Altai, Siberia, provoked not only public health responses but also a resurgence of ancient superstitions and social isolation. The language of plague, it seems, carries a power independent of the actual disease burden.

**Contexto**

The history of plague as a cultural phenomenon is inseparable from its most devastating appearance: the Black Death of the 14th century, which killed an estimated one-third of Europe’s population. That catastrophe etched the word into the collective consciousness as a synonym for apocalyptic ruin. When bubonic plague reappeared in Los Angeles in 1924 — believed to have been introduced from infected ground squirrels — the city’s response was swift and often cruel. Mexican-American neighbourhoods were cordoned off, homes were burned to the ground, and hundreds were forcibly quarantined in fenced camps. The Los Angeles Times of the era described the situation with headlines that blurred science and terror, amplifying public dread. Though only some 30 people contracted the disease, the word ‘plague’ turned a manageable health incident into a civic crisis.

Fast forward to modern-day Siberia. In the Altai Mountains, a region known for its nomadic herders and traditional lifestyles, outbreaks of bubonic plague (and, in some cases, anthrax) have occurred sporadically since the early 2000s. Natural foci of plague persist in the marmot populations of the steppes. When a teenage boy died of plague in 2014 in a remote village, or when an outbreak of anthrax in 2016 killed one child and hospitalised dozens in the Yamal Peninsula, the response again echoed the patterns of the 1920s: quarantine zones, mass culling of animals, and a cultural shudder that went far beyond medical risk. Local shamanistic rituals were revived to appease spirits believed to have sent the disease, while authorities imposed strict travel bans. The word ‘plague’ was never far from official statements, and it consistently heightened fear among populations already wary of outside interference.

**Analise**

Why does ‘plague’ elicit such a visceral reaction? Scholars in the field of cultural epidemiology argue that the term carries historical baggage that no other infectious disease word bears. ‘Influenza’ or ‘COVID-19’ are names that, while frightening, do not evoke the same eschatological resonance. The plague is the primordial pandemic — its presence in a community immediately suggests not just illness but a collapse of social order. In both the 1920s LA and modern Siberian examples, authorities faced a dilemma: they needed to warn the public without triggering panic. Yet the very word they used to communicate risk became a source of irrational behaviour. In LA, the quarantine camps were resisted because they reminded Mexican-American residents of the Black Death pogroms they had heard about. In Siberia, the word revived memories of the 1910s Manchurian plague, which killed 60,000 people and involved extreme quarantine measures including armed guards and mass cremations.

The impact of this linguistic phenomenon is not merely historical. In an era of global travel and social media, the word ‘plague’ can incite panic with frightening speed. When a case of bubonic plague was confirmed in a Chinese city in 2019, netizens shared images of plague doctors and the Dance of Death, conflating a treatable bacterial infection with an unstoppable medieval scourge. Modern Siberia faces similar challenges: health authorities now must communicate in a language that balances medical accuracy with cultural sensitivity, often avoiding the word ‘plague’ altogether in favour of euphemisms like ‘zoonotic infection’ to prevent social upheaval. Yet the very avoidance acknowledges the word’s power. The cultural response to plague underscores how deeply rooted narratives shape our behaviour, sometimes more powerfully than the actual threat.

**Fontes**

Historical account of the 1924 Los Angeles plague outbreak is drawn from published research in the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, as well as contemporary newspaper archives from the Los Angeles Public Library. Information on modern Siberian plague and anthrax outbreaks is based on reports from the World Health Organization, the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor), and academic studies in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Cultural analysis references work by medical anthropologists such as Dr. Carlo Caduff on pandemic rhetoric.