Ebola, its own discoverer calls it a spectacular virus, one of the most lethal.

We're starting to see the economic impact of the MERS outbreak now in cold, hard numbers.

The mysterious new virus, the World Health Organization, calls a threat to the world.

It's SARS.

The novel coronavirus may have our attention now, but it's part of a long history of viral

outbreak set of humanity.

There was SARS in 2002 and 2003, MERS in 2012, all the way back to the Spanish flu of

1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide.

In this episode, we'll revisit past outbreaks to see what they can tell us about the present.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, and this is coronavirus,

fact versus fiction.

Howard, do you mind if I call you Howard?

No, absolutely, Sanjay.

The reason I ask, of course, has to do with how we know each other.

Right.

You were my student many years ago, and if you called me Howard then, I would have nailed

you.

So...

When I was at the University of Michigan, I took a class with Dr. Howard Marquell.

He's the Director of the University Center for the History of Medicine, and he's here with

me today to add some historical context to what we're learning about the coronavirus.

The federal government, CDC, asked our group at the University of Michigan Center for

...