A Short History Of Disease Chapter Summary

Smallpox is an extremely deadly disease which, in one point in time, was the most feared disease on the planet. In the book Pox Americana, Elizabeth A. Fenn writes about the encounter with the deadly disease in the 1770's to the 1780's. Her book was first published in 2001 in New York City, where she originally wrote it. Her book contains just under 400 words that explain the disease, some of the first encounters with it, who and where it affected people, and how they got the epidemic under control. Pox Americana is a very informative book that teaches the reader various things.

During the Middle Ages, medicine was limited. This was critical because in 1348-1350 the Black Death killed millions, nearly one third of the population. Physicians had no idea what was causing diseases or how to stop them ("Medicine in the Middle"). The Catholic Church told its people the illness was punishment from God for their sins (Gates 9). Some of the only procedures doctors could perform was letting blood by using leeches, and mix ‘medicines’ using herbs, spices, and resins (Rooney 106-107). Other medicine was administered by drinks, ointments, poultices, baths, and purges (Rooney 120). One hundred years later, when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, many scholars moved to Italy, where they freely exchanged ideas. With them

Mr. XXXX is a 44 years old Caucasian male, a general construction worker who works on a nearby highway for the bridge project, and checked in this urgent care center for complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath (SOB). The chest pain is constant dull and pressure like pain, and started 3 hours ago. The pain is located on the center of chest. He rates the pain 4 out of 10 on a pain scale 0 to 10 while resting. The pain gets worse and increases after eating. He experienced increased chest pain and SOB with simple walking from the parking lot to this office. The pain was not resolved with taking PO 365mg of Aspirin 2 hours ago and resting. He was diagnosed with hyperlipedemia 10 years ago. He is taking medication to manage his high cholesterol level. He denies past history of chest pain, hypertension, and coronary artery disease. He denies any history of heart surgery or cardio artery bypass surgery. He is anxious and fearful for his first chest and SOB. He smokes a half pack a day for past 20 years. He drinks one bottle of bear every evening with meals. He denies taking any herbal medication or illicit drugs. He has been a good appetite. He reported 20 lbs weight gain since his retirement from military. He has an irregular meal time and does not exercise as much as he used to do in the military.

Due to the native’s total isolation from the rest of the civilized world, they had been prevented from developing immunities against many devastating diseases. These diseases were carried into the country unaware by the conquistadors from Europe and Africa. For example, smallpox reached Espanola by 1518 and was carried to New Spain in 1520. It then moved through Central America and entered Peru by 1527. Wherever the disease passed, it left a detrimental death toll in its wake. There are many accounts of villages that lost half or more of their population, some even lost as high as 90% of their population. Many more disease continued to slowly decimate the natives, such as measles typhus, influenza, yellow fever, malaria diphtheria and the bubonic plague. Within the next 100 year of disease, the native’s population became less than 10% what it was in the

During the exchange of goods and people moving to the new world brought sickness and diseases. The most common diseases the Old World brought were smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, influenza, & chicken pox. The most destructive disease out of all the ones brought to America were the smallpox. Small pox is a contagious, disfiguring and a deadly disease. The small pox started with the animals, and once the animals started being brought over and the disease was then transferred on to the

Health history of a patient is an important tool in identifying health issues and devising efficient interventions to address them. Hence, health providers can use health history information to diagnose, treat and plan for the care of the patients (Ball et al., 2006). In that light, we will focus on the patient named BB for purposes of privacy and confidentiality. BB is a 70-year-old Caucasian female. The patient resides and recently just moved to Show Low, Arizona. She is married and operates her business with the help of her husband. The interview was conducted at her home in Show Low, Arizona. More importantly, the patient's consent was sought before this meeting and she was assured of the confidentiality of the information shared

Geraldine Brook’s novel, Year of Wonders is based on a true story which recounts a 17th Century Plague, which struck the English village of Eyam and put many in strife. The story revolves around the protagonist, Anna Frith as she develops strength throughout the novel from being a maid in the beginning of the novel and eventually becomes a midwife. Similarly, Steven Soderbergh’s Film, Contagion is set in 21st Century America, which narrates the epidemic of the MEV1 virus, which causes dispute amongst many characters and has a manipulative effect on the characters in the film. In both the text and the novel, Diseases not only attack individuals but also causes the breakdown in society. Diseases cause the greed and the want for money in some characters, which has a huge impact on society as a whole. Similarly, diseases cause the need for self-preservation in order to survive. On the other hand, diseases cause characters to lose faith.

The diseases often spread quickly ahead of the Europeans. One example is that of the Spaniards. When the small pox disease first entered America in 1518, it only affected those who where around the Spaniards. However, over time, the disease spread, crossing

Throughout history many different diseases have infected the world. Such diseases consist of measles, mumps, malaria, typhus and yellow fever. Many of these diseases are caused by different things and originated in different countries.

Columbus made a voyage to a new world and new people. Trade and exploration continued into the Enlightenment. The visits and trade increased resulting in many instances of virgin soil diseases. This resulted in the Columbian Exchange. Not only food and knowledge were exchanged but also new diseases and medicines. The most notable medicine discovered in the Americas was cinchona bark to treat malaria. Smallpox, measles, influenza, chickenpox, typhoid and typhus killed many indigenous people in the New World. The New World sent syphilis back to the Old World as shown in the pdf of the Columbian Exchange.

Diseases have been categorized as under a derogatory and lamentable category. However, Dr.Sharon Moalem and Jonathan Prince approach diseases from a different view in their scientific book Survival of the Sickest . They discuss that if diseases weren 't helpful, shouldn 't they have been eliminated through natural selection or shouldn 't humans have developed resistance to them through the use of evolution? Moalem and Prince answer the questions by going back in time and analyzing the uses of diseases, and come across surprises that may help humans in the future as they may have in the past. Though Moalem and Prince discussed many diseases in their book Survival of the Sickest, three diseases really stood out.

Perhaps the most tragic effect it had on the New World was the death of thousands of Native Americans. Benign diseases of the Old World turned killer in the New World when it spread to the natives, who had never had the chance to build up immunity to the foreign sicknesses (37). Yet, despite this, there is no record of any massive smallpox epidemic of the Native Americans of the Greater Antilles for a quarter of a century after Columbus’ first voyage (45). The voyage between the Old and New Worlds was lengthy and would have allowed someone who had contracted the smallpox virus on the day of embarkment would have either been dead or have gotten rid of the virus by the time the ship reached the port of Santo Domingo; the only explanation for the late arrival of smallpox is that it was simply delayed (46). The virus can live in the smallpox scabs for weeks, so any presence of the scabs on the ship could have attribute to smallpox arriving in the New World (46). Either late 1518 or early 1519 was the first report of smallpox among the Native Americans in Santo Domingo (47). It soon spread to Puerto Rico and the Greater Antilles, then to the Yucatan, Cuba, and Central

The earliest recorded smallpox was happened in ancient Egypt. In the end of fifth century, the European colonists gave blankets which used by smallpox patients to the indigenous people, the plague happed. Until the human cured the smallpox completely, more than millions of people had been killed by the smallpox.

Famine, disease, and death—the trifecta of humanity’s great perils in history. The human race was no stranger to these events, as they had been a constant fear from the beginning of time. Famine had struck empires, disease had brought down great kings, and death eventually came knocking on everybody’s door. However, never had all three taken society by storm and ravaged the population quite like the Black Death. In a mere three years, the bubonic plague had wiped out more than 1/3rd of Europe’s entire population and caused massive collateral damage to every aspect of society.

One of the deadliest diseases known before the vaccine, smallpox, was thought to have originated in ancient China and India. From Asia, it spread along trade routes heading for Europe during the fifth and seventh centuries. In Europe, epidemics were frequent and devastating.