Disease Essay Outline

Pathogens are everywhere. They are in people, animals, and the environment. Pathogens come in a wide variety. The types are fungal, bacterial, viral, and other parasites. All pathogens can be dangerous, but two of them are more dangerous. These two types that more dangerous are fungal and bacterial. While both fungal and bacterial pathogens cause illness, they differ in the way they are transmitted, the way they are treated, and the diseases they cause.

The greatest adversary to the natives in the Americas was not the swords or guns of the invaders. It was the devastation brought by deadly diseases infecting an unsuspecting population that had no immunity to such diseases.

As the second part of this reflection paper, I selected a book ‘A Short History of Disease’ by Sean Martin. He is a writer and filmmaker also known for his other famous books like The Knights Templar, Alchemy and alchemists, the Gnostics. His films include Lanterna Magicka: Bill Douglas & the secret history of cinema. The most alluring thing which conceives me to cull this book is a history of the disease, as a medical professional, it's always tantalizing to know from where all these begins and this book reaches up to my expectations as it started from the first ever recorded disease in the history of mankind. He isn’t lying when he say this a history of the disease. He starts from the earliest bacteria to evolve on the earth, long before there was anything around to infect. This book is divided into seven chapters, each chapter describes the history of diseases in a particular era. Chapter One: Prehistory, Chapter Two: Antiquity, Chapter Three: The Dark and Middle Ages, Chapter Four: The New World, Chapter

Characters and civilians that are depicted in this book show their fear of the virus, which subsequently brings about danger in many situations. When telling of the thoughts and emotions of workers in contact with the virus, the author provides this example to show the level of fright in these researchers. “The organism was too frightening to handle, even for those who were comfortable and adept in space suits.” This example explains the mentality of those working with the virus, and the great risk placed upon them. Furthermore, Preston shows how fear of this

Another deadly disease was Consumption, or Tuberculosis which claimed the most young lives in the 19th century. The disease destroyed the lungs and was transmitted by sneezing and coughing by infected people or infected cows. It affected Victorians five to thirty who lived in an urban environment who had contact with an infected person. It causes weight loss, fever, night sweats, and fatigue. Later the person has a persistent cough, chest pain, and coughs up blood. Before it gets really extreme, it can be cured with rest, fresh air, and sunshine (Brown). The victims could live a very long time but they had to live with attacks that could last for years or decades. It allowed those infected to get married, have children, and pass on the disease. Families could suffer from the infection for two, sometimes three generations. Passed from grandparent to parent to child, for much of the century, physicians thought the disease was hereditary, not contagious. It could take years to develop symptoms and only 5-10% who have the bacteria ever develop the disease (Eagan).

Pathogens are most easily spread in the school environment since there are so many people inclosed in one place, using many of the same learning tools. When people are messing around and “wrestling” one another in the hallways, hugging each other, or even giving someone a high-five, these

“He will soon learn to have a thick skin about what he has” - my senior dermatologist told as we walked out of the unit for children with congenital skin disorder, in which skin peels off even with slightest friction. I had gone into dermatology for its challenging complex diseases and hoping for a future with intellectual explorations. I was shocked to see the lack of structure to deal with the psychological aspects of patients. Often, I sat besides bewildered patients, listening to their stories of stigmatization and rejection in the community because of their appearance. I believed in adapting individual approaches to different personality types and cultural backgrounds. I was unwilling to accept everything at its face value, but felt satisfied seeking for causes, asking questions, and above all analyzing the biological, psychological and social aspects of diseases. As I analyzed, I saw each disease being defined by the individual’s experience - her/his way of “being in the world”.

There is a new disease on the way. We are not sure how it works, but please be careful of any newcomers in your village. We have all heard of the horrible deaths it has been causing, and now it seems to be spreading even quicker.

Hospital acquired infections are one of the most common complications of care in the hospital setting. Hospital acquired infections are infections that patients acquired during the stay in the hospital. These infections can cause an increase number of days the patients stay in the hospital. Hospital acquired infections makes the patients worse or even causes death. “In the USA alone, hospital acquired infections cause about 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths per year”(secondary).

The competency, “Analyze determinants of health and disease using an ecological framework” was met through the exercise, “Health Problem Analysis Worksheet” and through reading Chapter 2 in the book Public Health: What it is and How it Works.

theory that if a part of the body goes wrong it should be fixed or

Discuss what is meant by medicalisation and in what ways we can consider diseases to be socially constructed.

Since the beginning, humanity has overcome diseases that could potentially wipe out the human race. From earliest forms diseases such as measles to modern day pandemics such as AIDS, mankind has survived throughout history. Though diseases have plagued society it was only after the outbreak of the HIV virus in 1981 that brought to attention the dangers of incurable diseases. Before this time, with World War I and II, and the Cold War, public fear was based on the potential chance of a nuclear destruction of the planet. Since the outbreak of the HIV in 1981, public anxiety has been displaced from nuclear winter to that of microbial plagues. The enemy was now no longer a visible foe but that of an unknown contagion with no knowable cure. Recently in 2009, with the outbreak of the Swine Flu (H1N1) Virus public alert of the dangers of contagions increased. Science Fiction films since the outbreak of HIV have reflected the public fear of the unknown and unbeatable contagions. Films such as Outbreak (1995), Contagion (2011) and the recent World War Z (2013) have shown audiences a creative window of possible outcomes of an epidemic and what man would do in order to stop the

Public health is a dynamic field of medicine that is concerned primarily with improving the health of populations rather than just the health of individuals. Winslow (1920) defined public health as;

Besides the computer revolution, medical advances have caused tension between faith and reason. The medical advances of the Twentieth Century have many beneficial effects for humanity. Diseases that used to be dangerous or life threatening, like mumps, measles, and whooping cough, are no longer worries in todays medical world. Tetanus, typhoid, and the bubonic plaque can now be treated with antibiotics or other medicines. Vaccines, especially the polio vaccine, freed many people from the effects of a disease. Advances in heart surgery and organ transplants have saved many lives. Anesthetics and painkillers have been made to reduce or eliminate pain during surgery or a painful disease. Advances in cancer and AIDS have