And I saw, and, look! a pale horse; and the one seated upon it had the name Death. And Hades was closely following him. And authority was given them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with a long sword and with food shortage and with deadly plague and by the wild beasts of the earth.”​—Re 6 Vss. 4-8.

Deadly plague also took its toll. In a matter of months, during 1918-1919, the Spanish influenza epidemic alone killed about 20,000,000. No single disaster had ever before caused such a mammoth destruction of life among mankind.