Bartonella Quintan Trench Fever

Illnesses, epidemics, and pandemics derive from the living conditions and the social stratification of a society. Poverty tends to increase an individual’s possibility of getting sick due to deficient housing conditions, malnutrition, pressure, etc. Research supports that impoverished individuals experience higher death rates due to the insufficient medical care and nutritious food available to them. “An estimated 25 million Americans do not have enough money to feed themselves adequately and, as a result, suffer from serious nutritional deficiencies that can lead to illness and death” (Tischler 383). In effect, this contributes to the overall high mortality rates among groups of social classes. Those that live in poverty experience high levels

Dysentery and diarrhea were a result of poor hygiene, close quarters with other sick soldiers and food not properly stored or prepared. Almost thirty percent of the population with chronic diarrhea died, while the survival rate for acute diarrhea was much higher. (Schoeder-Lein 86). Typhoid fever could mimic the symptoms of classic diarrhea and it was at times, hard to diagnose. According to CDC.gov, a person can get typhoid fever if they eat food or drink beverages that have been handled by a person who is shedding Salmonella Typhi or if sewage contaminated with Salmonella Typhi bacteria gets into the water they use for drinking or washing food. Considering the sources of transmitting typhoid fever, it is understandable that this was one of the top killing diseases during the Civil War. Malaria and Yellow fever were both mosquito borne illnesses. Mosquitoes are a nuisance to us today, but during the Civil War they wreaked havoc on the population and caused widespread devastation across the entire land, but primarily in the South. Not just because of the warm climate but the lack of cold weather severe enough to kill the mosquitoes themselves. Yellow fever is a horrific illness that has multiple

In the early 1900’s medicine was making some steps closer into some great improvements for health and better understanding of the human body. Doctors with sufficient knowledge of the human body and cures for diseases and viruses were scarce. People were much more concerned with government and politics, than health and medicine, until one of the greatest and most grotesque lethal pandemics that’s struck the earth in human history. This pandemic the “Spanish Flu” spread so rapidly and had an extremely high mortality rate. This was caused by the close contact of humans and poor cleanliness and sanitation, and the host (virus) and the body taking harsh action

Of the 22,200 people killed during the war, it is estimated that ¾ died of something other than a bullet would (MILITARY). Illnesses like dysentery, typhoid or “lake” fever, pneumonia, malaria, measles and smallpox were all present in the camps of soldiers (MILITARY). People were dying so fast in fact, that the hospital tents would be forced to hold dead bodies as many camps were facing coffin shortages (Newfield). The amount of people packed together in such a small space and the fact that the hospitals, the place they sent sick and wounded, were storing bodies, both added to the problem of spreading disease. Observers of this horror, like Capt.

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

224 years ago, in 1793, a yellow fever epidemic roared over Philadelphia. This was a devastating time for all Philadelphians. Although there were no cures, there were treatments. There were two types of doctors back in this time; the French doctors and the American. Mosquitos are the cause of this. They (the mosquitos) got infected by the refuges. The mosquitos spread the yellow fever to mankind. This epidemic killed a couple thousand people.

Throughout history the human race has been faced with one key factor that no one civilization has even been able to beat, not the might of the Roman-Byzantine Empire, nor the combined efforts of the entirety of Europe and their scholars could defeat this recurring foe. Pandemics, from the Greek ‘pan’ meaning all, and ‘demos’ meaning people (Harper Etymonline.com), are these indiscriminate killers whom care not for your social standing be it wealth, fame, or glory. Humans have contested with disease ever since the infantile stages of the species, but the ability of it to spread was severely inhibited by the fact that humans stayed in small groups of 10-30 people at most, giving the virus or disease severely hampered virulence. It was not till humans began gathering in larger, more permanent settlements such as the early Classical cities of Athens, Ramses, and Rome, that the issue of sanitation and disease came into effect. This has not to say that our issues with sanitation and disease prevention have stopped, rather have they been brought forward into the limelight, many nations around the world today have issues with age old diseases and give rise to extremely deadly new viruses of their own. To fully understand the effect of pandemics in history, then one must consider three major plagues of our recorded history, the first pandemic ‘Plague of Athens’, the pivotal ‘Plague of Justinian’, and the infamous ‘Black Death’

World War I had affected the health of many soldiers coming back from the war. To begin with many soldiers came home with tuberculosis. The disease spread rapidly in 1920 due to the unsanitary, urbanized conditions of the cities which was similar to that of the trenches. “The close proximity of people in wartime conditions meant diseases such as tuberculosis could easily spread” (Science Museum). In addition, many soldiers that returned home had lost limbs in the war due to trench foot. “Some conditions such as trench foot, an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet, and unsanitary conditions” (Science Museum). Trench foot affected soldiers who wished to go back to work, because most jobs wouldn’t allow handicapped workers to work; however,

Rickettsia rickettsii is the small, aerobic gram-negative bacterium that is the cause Rocky Mountain spotted fever in humans (and other vertebrates). They are obligate, intracellular bacteria that range in size form 0.2x0.5 µm to 0.3x2.0µm. Rickettsia belong to the phylum alpha-protobacteria, which are capable of growing in low levels of nutrients, and have a long generation time relative to other gram negative bacteria such as Escherichia coli. In humans rickettsiae preferentially reside in the nucleus or cytoplasm of cells lining small to medium size blood vessels.

A water vessel packed full of refugees unwell with yellow fever, sluggish as a snail, sail over to Philadelphia in 1793. A sly fox, one lone mosquito bites one refugee and flies off to infect someone else and spread the illness... We have an epidemic! Now, the older, respected Philadelphia doctors fought with the newcomer French doctors from Haiti over which was the genuine treatment to cure a patient infected with yellow fever. Their ideas were all very disparate, but both had a few little similar characteristics. Still, with all their efforts, by the time the fever died, 2,000 to 5,000 people had become deceased.

Can a disease save lives? Perhaps, it can help doctors become more aware of the disease, or maybe the disease helps create medicines to prevent death. Throughout the world there are many harmful diseases that have caused many deaths over time. The diseases are often found to be more common during wars. Specifically, during WWII there was many diseases that often killed the soldiers, Jews, and citizens. The diseases killed more soldiers than when they were at war. Of these many disease, typhus is one of the more serious and fatal diseases. Typhus is on of the most deadliest and dangerous diseases of the 20th century (Budanovic). The disease caused many problems for both people fighting in and living outside of the war. Typhus is very long lasting and possibly a fatal disease. However, during the war, typhus saved and killed many lives.

One of the main diseases that were caused in WW1 was Wiel’s disease. Wiel’s disease was caused because of rats. This disease occurred in the trenches as a lack of hygiene. “Rats would produce 480 babies per year” (WW1- class 6, 2012) Soldiers would get this disease as there would be swamps of rats that would keep coming into the trenches therefor giving the soldiers “Wiel’s Disease”. The effect of this disease on the soldiers was mild flu like symptoms headaches and chills. However, this disease could also lead to organ failure and bleeding.

Medical care was as scarce as clean water. Basic medical care was rudimentary. Describing the situations as “incredibly unhygienic” would be an understatement. War fatalities were the immediate effects of the Great War and the incredible spread of a disease was a later one. As a matter of fact, more people died from the Great Influenza Pandemic than from World War One (Tauenberger1).

In World War One diseases were one of the biggest problem for the solders due to lack of hygiene, medical assistance and little medicine. The most common diseases that the soldiers faced in the war were influenza, typhoid, trench foot, trench fever, malaria, dysentery and diabetes. These disease were caused by soldiers being exposed to cold, wet, windy and damp conditions.

While others, were only effected by direct contact. It was thought to have been sustainable by even touching clothing or other such items of the infected. Conditions of the fourteenth century were also a contributing factor. Famine had been an arising issue due to the number of overpopulation. Because of this, their immune systems began to weaken. “Europeans were susceptible to disease because many people lived in crowded surroundings in an era when personal hygiene was not considered important” (Dowling). The cities were unsanitary and littered with germs, making it easier to sustain such diseases. Unhealthy habits were conducted and medical advances had not yet been made. Doctors themselves had not known what to advise. No prescriptions had worked. There was no cure to what was happening. Most were not even aware of what was impending upon them. Anything that could would be tried, in hopes of living. People were becoming desperate.