Zusammenfassung der Ressource
A History of Pandemics
- Diseases
- Diseases has been part of the human history. Humans lives since 130,000 years
ago, and Bacteria 3.5 billion years ago and viruses 1.5 billion years ago.
- New techniques of treatment and a big advance in sanitation,
hygiene, and nutrition.
- Population is healthier and less vulnerable to illness
than ever before.
- When you get infected and survive you acquire an immunity to the disease
- Smallpox
- Origin: Northeastern Africa about 10,000 years ago; Spread by: airborne via coughing and
sneezing; Mortality rate: 30%; Symptoms: fever, vomiting , mouth sores and fluid filled blisters
- Deaths: Unknown millions
- Smallpox has caused more suffering
and death than any other disease in
the human history
- 1 in 3 people get this disease
- In the smallpox pandemic, whatever treatments were available did not help in nothing
- Deities to had been protected the people from smallpox
- Sapona in West Africa and Shitala Mata among
Hindus
- It has been found in egyptian mummies from 3,000 years ago
- Is mentioned in medical writings from india and China
- Killed at least 3 chinese and 2 japanese emperor's
- The Antonine Plague
- Origin: Near East; Spread by: Airborne via coughing and sneezing; Symptoms:
Fever, Swelling of the throat, diarrhea and skin eruptions; Mortality rate: 30% -
90%
- Affect Area: Roman
Empire
- Death Rate: 25% of the Roman Empire
- First appeared among the Roman soldiers and from there spread throughout the Roman
Empire in 165 AD
- It may have been smallpox or measles
- Magic and amulets of protection were very popular to prevent contagion
- The Roman Empire never fully
recovered
- The plague was in honor of the ruler Marcus Aurelius Antonius because at the end of his rule, called
the pax romana, the plague began
- The Plague of Justinian
- Origin: Tian Shan Mountains, China; Spread by: Fleas often carried on rodents; Mortality Rate: 80%; Symptoms:
Chills, Malaise, Fever, Muscle cramps, Seizures, Gangrene and buboes in the neck, armpits and groin.
- Deaths: 5,000 per
day
- Infected people died in 10 days or less.
- With the fall of the Roman Empire, the new Byzantine Empire in 541 AD
was slammed by the first pandemic of bubonic plague
- It was spread by infected fleas in
rodents
- It is believed that the plague reached Egypt and the infected rats were transported to Constantinople, the capital city of the empire.
- 40% of the population of the Byzantine Empire
died
- Many workers and farmers died on mass, causing famine and problems for keep the empire
- It's named after the Emperor Justinian who survived the bacteria
- Pneumonic Plague
- The plague could also be transmitted through
the air, increasing mortality to 90%
- Septicemia
- In rare cases the bacteria could also infect the blood,
increasing mortality to 100%.
- The Black Death
- Origin: Central Asia or East Asia; Spread by: Fleas carried by rats; Mortality Rate: 30% -
90% ; Symptoms: Buboes in the groin, the neck and armpits, fever and vomiting of blood
- Deaths: 1,000 million of
people
- Victims died within 2 - 7 days of
infection
- In the mid 1300s the bubonic plague returned once more to decimate Europe and Asia
- Climate change in Central Asia in 1338 caused rodents to move into areas populated by
humans where the fleas they carried spread the disease in the population
- India and Mongolia were left depopulated
- The bodies of the Mongolian soldiers who besieged Kapha (Crimea) in
1343 were catapulted to infect other people
- Genoese traders jumped in their ships to escape the war in kapha but they
unwittingly carried deadly rats with them back home to Italy
- Europe population already weakened by malnutrition, war and other diseases
was massacred
- Middle East was covered of dead
bodies
- The word quarantine emerged in Venice referring to the 40 days ships were required to wait
for ensure that no carrying the plague
- People were begin to draw closer to God and religion dominate the culture
during the following centuries to come
- Cocoliztli
- Origin: Possibly Europe; Spread by: Poor hygiene, Fecal matter; Symptoms: Black
tongue, Bloody diarrhea, neurological disorders, bleeding from nose, eyes and mouth
- Deaths: 5 to 15 million people
- It was introduced in 16th century by Europeans with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America
- It's relacionated with Ebola Virus
- This disease obliterated much of the population of the aztec empire
- Many Aztec villages and cities were left
abandoned
- This disease was thought to be a punishment from God for the hedonism of the Aztecs
- This disease helped the Spanish to destroy the Aztec
- But this was not the only disease brought by the Europeans
- Smallpox
- It was introduced to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1509
- The indigenous population had no acquired immunity and the disease wiped out thousands with an 80%
to 90% mortality rate
- This disease the better part of the 18th century it was
the leading cause of death
- New life-saving tecnique was first inventend y ancient China
- Doctors would take pus from an infected person's skin and use it to scratch the skin of a
healthy person
- Edward Jenner
the father of
immunology
- In 1790 his created the first vaccune
- His observed that dairymaids didn't get smallpox because them were already been
infected with cow pox virus and it's significantly less severe
- Vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries
- Smallpox the most deadly disease in human history as eradicated in 1979
- Basic principles of his technique are still used today when creating new vaccines
against new diseases