In 1827, Friedrich Schnurrer’s ‘Charte Uber die geographische Ausbreitung der Krankheiten’ was published detailing his summary of diseases around the world. Schnurrer wasn’t the first to study disease patterns globally, he was simply the first to place all of his notes on the world diseases and epidemics he know and read about onto a single map.

One of the earliest essays on disease and place, in terms of the planet, was the work of Johanne Christophor Homann, with his Medicinae Cum Geosophia Nexu [the Medical-Geography Connection], 1720. (see my page – http://wp.me/Puh6r-7MS&nbsp😉

The next massive tome published on disease patterns was by the famous author and printer of a very young United States, Noah Webster, who wrote a compendium on the history of the outbreaks around the world, all in an attempt to define geographic and climatic reasons for their recurrences (link below). His book served to explain how and why the United States was experiencing numerous, deadly yellow fever epidemics, which were referred to as the "black plague" at the turn of the century. Webster’s have a natural explanation for all of these events ensuing around the world, blaming the diseases on volcanoes, massive storm patterns, earthquakes, increased global heating by the sun, and yes, environmental and climate change (for a review of Webster’s theory of weather change patterns, deforestation, and climate change, see: Deforestation and Global Cooling: A New Theory for Disease by Noah Webster, 1810, at http://wp.me/Puh6r-3JA (2012); and http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/americas-first-great-global-warming-debate-31911494/&nbsp;(2011)).

which set the stage for his next important publication, the map of world diseases published in the 1828 Das Auslan (full citation with link to scanned copy at the end).

My purpose for reviewing this map and Schnurrer’s earlier work was to determine if there was any evidence for Ebola found on the map, and/or in the earlier writings by Schnurrer on the global disease patterns documented in explorers’, settlers’ and travelers’ writings.

The way Schnurrer and others for the time defined disease patterns was by their place of natural existence, known as the nest or nidus for a disease, and by their placement on the earth in relation to its latitudinal patterns, used to describe airflow and climate, the weather associated with the disease patterns documented for the time, and the local topography and natural ecological settings that the authors linked to these disease pattern observations.

Only the map will be reviewed for the moment.

The current behavior of Ebola shows that it is staying north of the equatorial line. If we review the diseases of this region, we find thirty nine distinct disease descriptions given for illnesses common to Africa between 0 and 30 degrees north. That part of African between the 0 and 20 degrees latitude line is for the most part equatorial in nature. Two attacks of "pestilence" are noted in this "torrid" or tropical zone (as later medical geographers referred to it), one epidemic each for the years 1696 and 1811. Since both of these are along the eastern end of upper Africa, they are rule out as Ebola possible ebola events for now, even without reviewing their symptomatology .

Throughout the north torrid region, there are numerous disease types defined symptomatically by Schnurrer as fevers, bearing the word fiber in their categorical name assignments ("Fieber", abbrev. as "Fieb.", "f" or "F."). The Pox is also noted ("Poken", with a brief reference to the "Quarantaine" performed). Numerous forms of venereal disease are displayed (abbrev. "v.d." or identified by their namesakes–syphilis and gonorrhea).

To differentiate the large number of fevers that appear on this map, the related symptoms noted are helpful. Galliche Fieber is yellow fever, that by Senegal is "common to the Negroes. . . ). Galliche rem[ittent] fever is possibly yellow fever, but also possibly malaria (remittence refers to cycling). A number of intestinal worm or "animalcule" diseases are also worth noting ("Faden ~~").

This is possibly the first documentation of Ebola as a disease native to the Congo River on a map, by Missionary Father Antonio Zuchella in 1696 (Benicken, 1824), in what it now the DR Congo.

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REFERENCES (if not in the above text).

A BRIEF HISTORY OF EPIDEMIC AND PESTILENTIAL DISEASES ; WITH THE PRINCIPAL PHENOMENA OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD, WHICH PRECEDE AND ACCOMPANY THEM, AND OBSERVATIONS DEDUCED FROM THE FACTS STATED. IN TWO VOLUMES. BY NOAH WEBSTER,