Definition

Epidemic

Rapid spread of infectious disease to a large number of persons in a given population within a short period of time, usually two weeks or less.

The first truly terrible disease outbreak came to America with the first Europeans. While smallpox has been around for thousands of years, European settlers first brought smallpox to North America in the 1600s. In 1633-1634, the disease swept through the Northeast, wiping out entire Native American tribes.

To this day, cholera, an infection of the small intestine, still affects between three and five million people and causes nearly 130,000 deaths a year worldwide ). However, the last documented outbreak in the United States was in 1911.

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