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epidemic
has definitions from the field of medicine
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[ adjective ] (especially of medicine) of disease or anything resembling a disease; attacking or affecting many individuals in a community or a population simultaneously
Examples "an epidemic outbreak of influenza" Used in print (LeRoy Fothergill, "Biological Warfare", in Peter...)The question of epidemic disease merits some discussion . This , of_course , does not eliminate from consideration for this purpose agents that are associated naturally with epidemic disease . Let us assume that it would be possible for an enemy to create an aerosol of the causative agent of epidemic typhus ( Rickettsia_prowazwki ) over City A and that a large_number of cases of typhus_fever resulted therefrom . Lousiness is a prerequisite for epidemic typhus . In this case , then , the military objective was accomplished with an epidemic agent solely through the results secured in the initial attack . |
| 2 |
[ noun ] (medicine) a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease; many people are infected at the same time
Used in print (William G. Pollard, Physicist and Christian....)It is like a mysterious epidemic which , starting first with Abigail and Parris , spreads inexorably with a dreadfully growing virulence through the whole town until all have been infected by it . (LeRoy Fothergill, "Biological Warfare", in Peter...)Some of those who question the value of BW have assumed that the only potential would be in the establishment of epidemics . They then point_out that with our present lack of knowledge of all the factors concerned in the rise and fall of epidemics , it is unlikely that a planned episode could be initiated . No epidemic was initiated nor was one expected because the population in City A was not lousy . This was done with full knowledge that there would be no epidemic . |
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