During a plague outbreak in 1899, officials in Honolulu quarantined and burned the city’s Chinatown. Some Covid-19 talk today echoes their rhetoric.

Four major influenza epidemics were recorded between 1830 and 1848. The 1830-1831 epidemic may have originated in China; then and in 1833 influenza advanced westward out of Russia into Europe. In 1836-1837, influenza diffusion was largely north to south, and in 1847-1848 the disease swept through th …