What is "scourges"

Usage examples of "scourges".

Pasteur dreamed about the tracking down of microbes that he knew must be the scourges of the human race, the authors of disease.

They sat worshiping Pasteur at his unpopular lectures in the Academy of Medicine, believing every one of his laughed-at prophecies of dreadful scourges caused by sub-visible bugs.

It is not an effort at epigram to say, that whom she scourges most she most supports.