The Study of Germs

Bacterial and fungi infections are easy to cure with the use of antibiotics, where as viruses can be hard to cure or vaccinate against, such as the common cold. Bacteria can be found everywhere and anywhere Soil, Water, Plants, Animals, material and even deep in the earth's crust. Bacteria feed themselves by making there food with the use of sunlight and water. We would not be able to live without Bacteria. The human body consists of lots of friendly bacteria which also protect us from dangerous ones by occupying places in the body. Some of the most deadly diseases and devastating epidemics in human history have

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

The origin of disease is a relatively easy idea to understand. Human beings on the planet went through a transition from nomadic, hunter-gatherers to the sedentary lifestyle by utilizing agriculture. This brought relatively small bands of people together into villages, which eventually became towns and cities. In Europe, the people not only used agriculture to feed their growing population, they also domesticated animals for a food source. As the population grew, the size of the herds of animals needed to feed the people grew as well. All animals carry disease and parasites, both in the wild and when they are domesticated. However, domesticated animals proved to be a breeding ground for disease. These domesticated animals were in close contact with the growing population of Europeans and it was not long before the disease was transferred to humans. The microbe, virus, or parasite only had to adapt to living in a human host. The process was relatively quick, and thus the epidemic disease was born in Europe. This was not true for

Infections can be spread through many things, these include; food borne infection, person to person, water borne infection, airborne infection, insect borne infection and fomites.

Bacteria is a single celled organism, bacteria have evolved to thrive in almost any environment and can be found in almost any substance/surface and also in the human body, only 1% of bacteria is actually harmful.

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

A devastating outbreak of epidemics brought overseas by the Europeans wiped out almost 95 percent of the Native American population. Europeans had already dealt with the Black Death in the 14th century, which killed a third of the European population. Over time, their exposure to smallpox, measles, chicken pox, and other contagious infections eventually led to their resistance to the diseases (20). The Native Americans, however, did not acquire the immunity to the diseases that Europeans had, so their encounter was more detrimental. Although the Columbian Exchange expanded trade and food production rapidly among three continents, it also introduced new diseases to North America and devastated nearly 10 million Native

    Old World diseases were transferred European sailors to Native Americans. The diseases played at least as big of role in defeating the Native Americans as advanced weaponry did (Craig). In the first 20 years after the first encounter, wherever the Europeans went, large numbers of Native Americans died. The most deadly disease was smallpox, killing millions of people. Bubonic plague, typhoid, typhus, influenza, measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, malaria

As the Spaniards arrived in America, Europeans immediately contracted syphilis from the Indians. Meanwhile, “The Europeans, for their part, gave the Indians measles and smallpox.” (Document B). Chaos arose and population declined, killing off many Native Americans. The outrageous, smallpox outbreak stuck all around Latin America. According to Alfred Crosby, the author of “The Columbian Exchange”, “…the communicability of smallpox and the other eruptive fevers…that any Indian who received the news of the Spaniards could also have easily received the infection.” (Document C). Similarly to the bubonic plague in the old world, the smallpox and measles were the “black death” in the new

The article “Some of My Best Friends are Germs,” by Michael Pollen was a very interesting and informative read. Pollen explains that our bodies house 100s of trillions of microbes. More than 99 percent of our genetic information is microbial. The large number of bacteria that inhabits us weighs many pounds, forming a massive, unexplored world that scientists are just starting to document. These bacteria affect our health as much as if not more than the genes we receive from our parents.

Smallpox believed to be brought by a Portuguese explorer in 1506 who also bring tuberculosis. This disease brings to America by African slaves which kill more than half of the population of Indians, from there this disease spread to Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Yucatan. In the 17th century, this disease spread to North America killing large numbers of people. Great pox which is known as syphilis nowadays is another disease after smallpox which dominates this era. This disease is supposed to be traveled with a crew of Columbus who introduce this disease in Europe. This disease traveled to India with Vasco de Gama who also introduce the world with a new type of skin disease which is known as scurvy. Another disease which shows its glimpse is epilepsy. Arabs consider it as ‘divine disease’ and Babylonian consider it was caused by ‘touch of

Beginning in the fifteenth century with the arrival of Columbus, natives of the Americas were infected with European diseases that proved to be deadly to the Indians. The population in northern Mexico

Before, biologists assumed all microbes are bad for the human body (automatically thought of pathogens), caused many diseases and harm our body fundamental systems. In addition, the biologists think that our body is already built which had all the functions required to maintain our health. However, the attitude has changed over the last decade. The biologists characterized the most prevalent species of microbes in the body, and found out that these collective microbes do not threaten us, and they also are important part of human bodies.

The colonization of Africa created countries riddled with disease because they forced the native Africans away from their homes to mine and take away the continent’s resources. Putting all those people with the people who have already been infected together, germs are spread

Microbes aren’t really mentioned much today, but back when the New World was discovered, these Microbes were causing a lot of trouble in the Old and New World. So let’s go back to 1494. In Europe, a very dangerous disease known as Syphilis came about. This disease was most likely coming from sexual transmission and even killed children once born. In the New World, we assume that everyone was healthy, but there are signs that Syphilis was already there. We don’t know if that’s true, but that evidence is still there in case the claim is fact. Then by the time Columbus arrived, his team spread the smallpox disease to the Native Americans.To make things worse, Cortes came in and starved all the Aztecs and the city was destroyed in seventy five