2179: cyprian plague Dec 2, 2020

It is very common to name diseases after the places associated therewith, like Lyme disease, West Nile virus, and Ebola. This is not the case with the Cyprian plague per se, a plague which affected the eastern and especially southeastern part of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD. One might it think started in or around the island of Cyprus, but actually the plague is named after St. Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage; it is thought to have actually originated in Ethiopia. He documented the disease at the time, and so it is associated with his name. Be careful also, because ‘cyprian’ on its own means ‘prostitute’, and so the adjective now used is ‘cypriot’.