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Transcript
From: Calliope, 2001-03 Issue Theme: The Black Death Subject: Medicine, Health and Disease Time Period: AD1000-1500: Medieval Times, 1750-1914: Age of Revolutions, 1900Present Back to Normal View Epidemic Disease Since the Black Death by Nick King Although most of the epidemics associated with the Black Death occurred in the 1300s, plague continued to threaten humans for centuries. Between 1664 and 1665, 70,000 people died during the Great Plague of London, and in 1894 plague killed up to 100,000 people in Canton (China) and Hong Kong before spreading to neighboring countries. During the next 20 years, more than 10 million people worldwide died from the disease. Although humans have developed strategies to prevent and treat the disease in the intervening years, it remains a threat to human life even today. In 1994, outbreaks of bubonic and pneumonic plague killed more than 200 people in India, reminding us that the fight against infectious disease is far from over. Plague is not the only disease to have threatened humanity in the 650 years since the Black Death first swept across Europe. During this time, infectious diseases of all kinds have wreaked death and destruction across the globe. Both the diseases themselves and people’s experiences of them have varied greatly. Diseases are transmit- ted in a number of ways: through the air in droplets of mucus from coughs or sneezes; from the bites of animals such as mosquitoes, fleas, and rodents; or through direct contact with microbes carried by water, blood, or other body fluids. Diseases such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever and Anthrax are extremely deadly and cause sickness and death very quickly. Others, such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, may not cause sickness until many years after infection. Diseases are caused by many different kinds of organisms, including bacteria, viruses, protozoa (extremely small single-cell animals), and helminths (multicellular animals such as tapeworms and roundworms). Before the 20th century, disease was a constant companion for people the world over. Asia and Western Europe were repeatedly struck by epidemics of not only plague, but also cholera, influenza, smallpox, yellow fever, and childhood diseases such as measles and chickenpox. Europeans exported many of these diseases to North and South America between the 16th and 19th centuries. With little or no natural immunity to the diseases that Europeans brought to their shores, as much as 90% of the Native American population died in terrible epidemics of smallpox, measles, and typhus. In Africa and South Asia, people suffered from tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue. Sometimes local epidemics spread across the globe. Between 1817 and 1923, cholera epidemics swept across Asia and Europe, killing thousands. In 1918 and 1919, several strains of the Spanish influenza virus killed 675,000 people in the United States, and between 20 and 25 million worldwide. During the late 19th and 20th centuries, the situation began to change. In Western Europe and North America, the number of deaths from infectious disease sharply declined. In 1900, 797 out of every 100,000 people in the United States died from infectious diseases; by 1980, only 36 out of every 100,000 did. During the same period, the number of years that the average American could expect to live jumped from 47 to 73. However, the same cannot be said of the rest of the world. Diseases like pneumonia, tuberculosis, and malaria have killed millions of people in Africa, Latin America, and Asia throughout the 20th century, and continue to do so to this day. There were several reasons for the decline in epidemic disease in richer countries like the United States. Better nutrition and living conditions have improved people’s ability to resist diseases. Advancements in public health, sanitation, and pest control and the availability of clean water have all worked to hamper the transmission of infections via insects and dirty water. Finally, the development of vaccines, antibiotics, and other drugs have led to the cure or even eradication of diseases like polio and smallpox. Still, infectious disease is not yet a phenomenon of the past. Since the early 1980s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has grown to staggering proportions. Worldwide, 47 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and almost 20 million people have died from the epidemic. In 1999 alone, 2.8 million people, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia, died of AIDS. You have also probably heard of several high-profile microbes like the Ebola and West Nile viruses, each of which has caused deaths in the United States and elsewhere. Although there have been many changes since the time of the Black Death, a few factors have always been true during epidemics. Disease tends to strike hardest at the poorest and most disadvantaged members of a society. Weakened by bad nutrition and lack of access to health care, the poor are less resistant to disease and unable to afford proper care when they become sick. People the world over also still respond to epidemics in many different ways. They rely on doctors and scientists, but also religious and political leaders, to provide explanations for what causes disease and how to prevent and cure it. Despite numerous advances in the treatment and prevention of epidemic disease, it continues to be a source of fear and suffering for people around the globe. Hemorrhagic refers to heavy bleeding. Anthrax is an infectious hemorrhagic disease of wild and domesticated animals, especially cattle and sheep, which is caused by a bacillus and can be transmitted to people. Dengue is an infectious tropical disease transmitted by mosquitoes and characterized by severe pains in the joints and back, fever, and rash. See also: Articles from the same subject. Articles from the same time period. Copyright © 2013 Carus Publishing Company Web Site - Contact - Terms of Use