<P> Thucydides is skeptical of these conclusions and believes that people were simply being superstitious . He relies upon the prevailing medical theory of the day, Hippocratic theory, and strives to gather evidence through direct observation . He notes that carrion - eating birds and animals disappeared as a result, though he leaves it an open question whether they died after eating the corpses or refused to eat them and were driven away: </P> <P> All the birds and beasts that prey upon human bodies, either abstained from touching them (though there were many lying unburied), or died after tasting them . In proof of this, it was noticed that birds of this kind actually disappeared; they were not about the bodies, or indeed to be seen at all . </P> <P> Historians have long tried to identify the disease behind the Plague of Athens . The disease has traditionally been considered an outbreak of the bubonic plague in its many forms, but reconsiderations of the reported symptoms and epidemiology have led scholars to advance alternative explanations . These include typhus, smallpox, measles, and toxic shock syndrome . Based upon striking descriptive similarities with recent outbreaks in Africa, as well as the fact that the Athenian plague itself apparently came from Africa (as Thucydides recorded), Ebola or a related viral hemorrhagic fever has been considered . </P> <P> Given the possibility that profiles of a known disease may have morphed over time or the plague was caused by a disease that no longer exists, the exact nature of the Athenian plague may never be known . In addition, crowding caused by the influx of refugees into the city led to inadequate food and water supplies and a probable proportionate increase in insects, lice, rats, and waste . These conditions would have encouraged more than one epidemic disease during the outbreak . However, advancing scientific technologies may reveal new clues . </P>

The cause of the epidemic that devastated athens
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