Globalization Has Had A Negative Impact On Health, Diseases and The Environment

In two years between 1918 and 1919, A pandemic of influenza swept mercilessly over the planet, killing millions which stood in its path. Miraculously, the exact origin of the pandemic is unclear. What is exceedingly clear, however, is that often the actions of man aided in the spread of the virus, whether due to inadvertent endangerment, close quarters, religious principles, or failure to recognize the true threat that influenza posed.

The book “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History, written by John M. Barry, covers the progression of the Spanish influenza, especially in the United States. Barry focuses not only on the influenza itself, though, but also on the social influences that allowed the virus to flourish. The book covers how medical practices in the United States had risen up just in time to combat the virus, but, due to societal issues and the war, the doctors struggled in areas where they should have been successful.

Throughout the history, influenza viruses have caused several pandemics or global epidemics, killing many people. For example, the influenza strike in 1918 to 1919 infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, which is one-third of the planet’s population at the time and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million people. More than 25 percentage of the U.S. population were affected, and caused 675,000 deaths in U.S during the pandemic.(History, 2015). There were no effective treatments for this type of influenza and no available vaccines can prevent its spread during the period. (History, 2015) U.S government required general population to wear masks and other protective equipments in public areas, and many public places also closed due to the influenza strike. Health care providers tried everything they knew to save people, but none shows any evidence of effects. (National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI], 2015). Scientists found out that the influenza virus had invaded their lungs and caused pneumonia, which made so many people died from the pandemic (History,2015). Another influenza strike happened

The first wave of the 1918 pandemic appeared in San Sebastián, Spain. Within two months, 8 million of Spain’s residents were ill, and the disease had spread on a global scale. Soon it became known as the Spanish flu, because it received the most press there. The other nations had their media tied up with wartime censorship; Spain, a noncombatant, had no such measures in place (Kolata, Flu 9-10). The first wave of the 1918 pandemic appeared in America without much comment. The media was more interested in attention-grabbing news about topics like the war than the rather unremarkable flu. Most people were afflicted with symptoms for a few days before recovering and moving on. The only aspect of the flu that was remarkable was the condition of the lungs from the victims who had died from the flu and pneumonia (Crosby 17-21).

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

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’

In 1918, at the end of World War I, the Spanish flu struck the US. Research says that the estimated amount of deaths are somewhere between 20-40 million people worldwide. The Spanish flu was one of the most devastating pandemics in modern history. The Spanish flu was something the medical world had never seen and affected the people living in California greatly.

The book The Great Influenza by John Barry takes us back to arguably one of the greatest medical disasters in human history, the book focuses on the influenza pandemic which took place in the year 1918. The world was at war in the First World War and with everyone preoccupied with happenings in Europe and winning the war, the influenza pandemic struck when the human race was least ready and most distracted by happenings all over the world. In total the influenza pandemic killed over a hundred million people on a global scale, clearly more than most of the deadliest diseases in modern times. John Barry leaves little to imagination in his book as he gives a vivid description of the influenza pandemic of 1918 and exactly how this pandemic affected the human race. The book clearly outlines the human activities that more or less handed the human race to the influenza on a silver platter. “There was a war on, a war we had to win” (Barry, p.337). An element of focus in the book is the political happenings back at the time not only in the United States of America but also all over the world and how politicians playing politics set the way for perhaps the greatest pandemic in human history to massacre millions of people. The book also takes an evaluator look at the available medical installations and technological proficiencies and how the influenza pandemic has affected medicine all over the world.

It was the year 1918, Many people were fighting viciously in the World War fighting for what each side had believed was true and fair. Both the allied and the axis powers were butting heads across Europe, Asia and Africa. As the war was coming to an end a massive 16 million lives were taken from the war-torn events that had taken place. While the war effort was in full force both domestically and internationally, A secret war was brewing under the surface becoming the underlying theme for what would be the most cataclysmic atrocity that had ever existed, only coming second to the bubonic plague. This would be the name of the biggest viral pandemic to had spread since that time, and its name would be the 1918 flu or Spanish

pandemics: the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu and the terror and

This book titled Flu details the struggle of scientists searching for what in fact caused the 1918 Influenza epidemic and how to prevent another massive Flu outbreak. The 1918 Flu epidemic (also known as the Spanish Flu) which killed twenty to forty million people (about 3%-5% died) from every corner of the world. Unlike most flu strands which kill the extremes of the age spectrum, the flu in 1918 would kill males more than females, the very young, the very old, and surprisingly the healthy adults (between ages twenty to forty). Also, this strand would kill not just the ones living in undeveloped regions of the world, but also developed regions such as the United States where 25% of Americans were infected and 600,000 thousand died. The mortality

The military strategies and decisions of the United States Military made the Spanish Influenza a disastrous and widespread epidemic from 1918 to 1919, which infected approximately one third of the world’s population (around 500 million people) and killed around 50 million. [1][2] In comparison, World War I only claimed an estimated 16 million life. [4][5][6][7]The flu killed more than war itself. [3] There were three waves of Spanish flu, which occurred in 1918 spring, 1918 fall and 1919 spring. The first and third one were relatively mild, but the second one was far more severe, causing death within hours or a few days. [8][9]However, it was not a coincidence for the epidemic and the

In 1918, the world witnessed an influenza outbreak that would come to be known as the Spanish Flu (Kamradt-Scott, 2012). The pandemic was believed to have started in the United States, but when the outbreak was finally over it had circumnavigated the world an estimated three times and took the lives of between twenty to fifty million members of the world population. This outbreak was said to have a negative impact of the troops that were currently fighting in World War 1 and was often referred to as a war time disease (Kamradt-Scott, 2012). With the government’s resistance to notify other countries to give them a significant advantage over American troops, it is highly likely; that the outbreak was worse than could have been had they just

Globalization aided in impacting human health by population mobility. The source of epidemics throughout history can be traced back to human migration (Saker). The effects of these epidemics have changed whole societies. International efforts to prevent the spreading of infections from one country to another have been focused on. Early diseases that spread between Asia and Europe included the bubonic plague, influenzas of various types, and other similar contagious diseases. The world is more interdependent and connected than ever in the era of globalization. This is because inexpensive and efficient transportation allows access to almost everywhere and the increase of global trade of agricultural products brought an increasing number of people into contact with animal disease. Trade routes had long been established between Europe and Asia along which diseases were unintentionally transmitted. The management of malaria is a global role (Carter). Global institutions support the

In the spring of 1918, the first wave of one of the deadliest influenza pandemics began plaguing its victims (Peters, ix). Over the span of three lethal waves, the pandemic claimed approximately forty million victims, eradicating nearly twenty percent of the entire world’s population, or about one out of five individuals (Peters, ix). To make matters more dire, the ill-suited medical community was exceptionally unprepared for such a wide-scale pandemic: Doctors had very basic tools, knew little about diseases, and had no experience with vaccinations or prevention (Peters, 1-5; “The 1920s: Medicine and Health: Overview”, n.p.). People blindly faced the epidemic, relying on folk remedies such as consuming wine, drinking antiseptic, and