Sebastian was the saint of plagues and an intercessory against epidemics, Anthony the patron saint of skin diseases and ergotism, known in medieval times as St Anthony's Fire.
Sophocles' Oedipus the King begins "with a plague and a pollution".
In India, they endured dysentery, hepatitis, plague and a shortage of marriageable white women.
These include smallpox, anthrax, ebola, plague and a handful of lesser-known organisms.
Editorials published in The People's Daily depict wangbas, game parlors and computer games as a "plague" and a "poison".
Elsewhere in the country, invasive species have been running riot for ages, some a plague and a nuisance, others a delight.
Vast numbers of pilgrims visited Rome, and the project did much good, though it was marred by an outbreak of the plague and a tragedy when 172 people died in a panic-crush on the Ponte Sant'Angelo.
Garrett, the antihero of the series since its 1998 premier, it back, returning to his home town, which is now in the grip of both a horrendous plague and a tyrannical ruler, The Baron.
In marked contrast to the rants of his Christian editors, Leo has hard words for the religion of his fathers on only two occasions, where he calls Islam a pestilencia (plague) and a pazia (folly).
The trauma of losing his close friend La Boétie to plague, and a near-fatal riding accident, knocked him out of morbidity into a cheerful acceptance of life, even after he had lost all but one of his children.
