The personification of diseases is a universal phenomenon. In Cyprus, three main epidemics plagued the island over the centuries and these could be nothing else but female personifications! The plague, smallpox, and diphtheria. Each “woman” had a different appearance and characteristics.
The Plague appeared as an old woman escorted by her two sisters, Cholera and Small Pox. She was usually dressed in black and her breath was poisonous. Small Pox was another old, ugly, black-dressed woman. Cholera often appeared with Plague washing linen in a river, thus associated with water. She was an old woman with large teeth, covered with a sheet holding a basket and a long stick. Diphtheria, also known as zilikourti is believed to have taken its name from the Turkish words zil and kurt, meaning closed wolf. This explains the belief that it was an internal (closed) lupus, an ulcer which eats one up. According to some researchers, diphtheria was another name for anthrax. Nevertheless, she was also personified as a woman.
The ‘Did You Know’ series is made possible with the support of OPAP (Cyprus).
