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Final Reflective Essay

Caleb Baldwin

HR: The Class Notes and Powerpoints to tie the course together. No unauthorized aid was used.  See Citations for Artifacts.

Epidemics have been occurring since the first human civilizations arose thousands of years ago.  The diseases and illnesses started from many sources ranging from animals, close living quarters, unsanitary communities and horrible disposal of human waste products.  These conditions led to serious problems within communities because they were able to spread disease quickly and often times without warning.  The early epidemics caused large numbers of deaths and ultimately paved the way for society to find a way to treat the diseases, which have extended to this day.

Since the first civilization, humans have always wanted to conquer new territory and more or less, the world.  With this desire to move around, disease became a prominent factor causing the deaths of many people (Baldwin, Appearance of Plague 2018). When patient zero contracted a disease, they would often times spread it to their families or others that they came in close contact with.  As it spread through the community, those effected grew exponentially.  And as those individuals went to conquer new territories, they would spread it to the peoples they were fighting.  This caused the disease to then spread to a new community and so on.  This problem is what caused the rapid spread of disease in the early years.  In addition, trade practices caused diseases such as the Bubonic plague to spread extremely fast.  For example, the Mongols originating from Asia brought the plague with them as they spread their ideals to the western world.  Shipping vessels from Asia also spread the disease because of the rats on board.  The rats would offload the ships while carrying the disease and find their way to towns, thus spreading the devastating effects.  The people blamed God, Jews, and Witches for these horrible epidemics; they were burned at the stake because communities had nowhere else to turn (Baldwin, Plague Over Time, 2018).

While the disease spread from person to person and ultimately caused the large killings of people, there were also issues with the burying of the bodies.  The bodies were thrown in large mass graves and often handled by more than one person. Those that handled the bodies continued to spread the diseases by being in contact with the ill patients bodies. The run off created by the lack of sewage systems and poor sanitation methods further spread the disease (Baldwin, Appearance of Plagues 2018).  This problem is still evident today in countries like Haiti.  The country of Haiti has a huge problem with sanitation which causes the spread of diseases such as cholera (Baldwin, Cholera Kills 2018). This issue has had large outbreaks in the last several years for the same reason that the plague spread thousands of years ago.

With new diseases occurring every day throughout the world, society is continually trying to find ways to eradicate them or prevent them from spreading to the point of creating an epidemic.  Many scientists have worked with diseases and have paved the way for today’s immunizations.  Within the last 100 years alone, HIV/AIDS, Syphilis, the Flu, and other bacterial or viral diseases have been cured or prevented due to the works of Snow and other researchers (Baldwin, Cholera Kills 2018). Immunizations have caused millions of people to become immune to different strains of the flu. Antibiotics have caused bacterial diseases to be cured within the human body.  All of this would not have been possible without the research put forth by these great scientists.

However, finding cures for diseases has not always been easy or ethical.  Back in the mid-20^thcentury, Syphilis was a huge problem for people of all social classes.  It was a sexually transmitted disease caused by Treponema pallidum that caused rashes and lesions (Baldwin, Ethics of Experimentation 2018).  In order to find a cure for this disease, researchers started the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment which looked at African-Americans in Alabama in order to find a cure.  The researchers purposefully infected the subjects with the disease and then refused to treat them so that they could study the effects it had on the body.  Many people died because of the infection and even when the subjects figured out what they had, they were not allowed to seek treatment, which was highly unethical (Baldwin, Ethics of Experimentation 2018).  While this experiment was wrong, it helped them find a cure for the disease that was infecting so many individuals throughout the United States.

Additionally, Diseases have been used as a means of warfare to infect the enemy and devastate their armies so that the other sides could win. One of the first instances of this was with the Smallpox disease.  The British used the disease in the 1760s to kill off the Native Americans and ultimately take over their land to use for themselves (Baldwin, Smallpox 2018). This disease was highly effective because the population had never been exposed to anything of that caliber, which was devastating to them.  Smallpox killed nearly 300 million people throughout its course (Baldwin, Smallpox 2018).

Diseases have also had an indirect effect on populations.  The Irish potato blight caused the potato plant to die off very rapidly causing massive problems because this was the main way that the Irish population survived (Baldwin, Potato Potahto 2018).  This disease, although it did not directly effect the body, caused nearly 1 million people to die because their food source was abruptly cut off due to the lack of growth of their primary food source (Baldwin, Potato Potahto 2018).

Today, we see diseases that occur in more unsophisticated societies in Africa and Central America.  Ebola and Zika viruses continually cause problems in these regions. Now more than ever, we can spread these diseases because of airline travel.  We can be on the other side of the globe in a matter of hours carrying the diseases that are not known to exist in certain countries.  This can cause an epidemic to occur within days or weeks.  While there hasn’t been a huge epidemic in the last several decades, it is only a matter of time before one occurs.  We don’t know when, how, or what disease it will be caused by, but we can only hope that we will be prepared for it when it occurs.

References:

Caleb Baldwin. 2018.  The Appearance of Plagues in History. ePortfolio: An Apple a Day (Artifact

1).

Caleb Baldwin. 2018. The Plague Over Time. ePortfolio: An Apple a Day (Artifact 2).

Caleb Baldwin. 2018. The Ethics of Experimentation. ePortfolio: An Apple a Day (Artifact 3).

Caleb Baldwin. 2018. Smallpox: A Battle for the Centuries. ePortfolio: An Apple a Day (Artifact

4).

Caleb Baldwin. 2018. Potato, Potahto…a Blight Known to Kill. ePortfolio: An Apple a Day

(Artifact 5).

Caleb Baldwin. 2018. Cholera Kills; Contamination Spreads. ePortfolio: An Apple a Day (Artifact

7).

Zoonotic diseases are ones that spread from animals to humans through the use of a “vector” (i.e. mosquitos, fleas, etc.).  Diseases of this nature have been around for centuries but were only discovered within the last 100 years when researchers realized that we could be infected by diseases that were known to effect only animal species.  The most prominent of these diseases are HIV, Zika, Malaria and Ebola.

The biggest concern with many of these diseases, particularly Zika and Malaria are the effects on unborn children in countries where healthcare is not as advanced as the United States.  The diseases can cause low birth weight and brain disorders of the babies that contract the disease through their mothers.

Malaria is found predominantly in regions that are humid, swampy, and hot such as along the equator and in Africa/South America. A mosquito that is infected with the disease will bite a human and suck their blood, which will cause that person to contract the illness.  The disease progresses and infects their liver cells and when another mosquito comes along and bites that individual, the second mosquito contracts and spreads to another person.  The cycle continues until many individuals have contracted and subsequently spread the disease.

Zika was first discovered in 1947 Africa and was seen again in 2013 French Indonesia.  At first, the disease was not seen to be an issue because it only caused a mild infection and seemed to have no long term effects on the individual.  In more recent years, outbreaks of the disease have infected many individuals and have caused many issues for expecting mothers and their children once they have been born.

Ebola is another disease that has recently made a comeback in the African continent.  It caused severe hemorrhaging, diarrhea, vomiting and ultimately caused such a dehydration in the patient that they would perish extremely quickly and violently.  The disease was vector borne and spread through contact with human bodily fluids.  Although it has been controlled, Ebola, just like all other vector borne diseases present a huge threat to the human population.

HR: The video shown in class as well as powerpoints and class notes.  No unauthorized aid was used.

HIV/AIDS was brought to global attention back in the late 70s and early 80s after several instances of PCP or Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia infected several homosexual men.  The concern over the infection began due to the fact that it was only found in those who had severely compromised immune systems.  There had to be some reason that these individuals had compromised immune systems, but the cause was not yet known.  The only findings at the time were that the infections arose after patients had sexual contact with those that were infected.

The transmission seemed to increase in the homosexual population, which caused a fairly rapid spread in the disease over several years.  As more and more homosexual men became comfortable with their sexuality, an increasing number of them became sick.  As more research was done to understand what was going on, they realized the HIV was going to an epidemic in the U.S and around the world.

In the United States specifically, HIV was seen as a shameful disease to incur because it was mainly contracted in the gay community, which created a stigma.  As the HIV epidemic began to spread, President Reagan and other politicians refused to acknowledge that the disease was a serious problem in the nation and they refused to do anything about it.  They censored educational products to help the public understand how to prevent it and this caused the disease to continually progress. Additionally, the morals of the public at the time did not favor homosexual interactions, so they refused to help anyone who was not in a heterosexual relationship.

After the U.S. realized what a burden this disease was creating for those living with it, activist groups began to do something about it.  They passed out condoms in clubs, bars, and other gathering places in order to help prevent the spread.  Other groups started needle exchange programs, which were against the law, but helped get clean needles to drug addicts so that they did not have to share needles and expose themselves to the potential for the disease.  Often times, the activists would be arrested because of their work to help the drug addicts because having needles was illegal and the government thought they would be promoting the use of illegal drugs on the streets.

Overall, the U.S. culture has made significant progress in the last several decades in order to prevent the spread of the disease and establish a treatment that would slow the progress for those infected.  After the government acknowledged it as a true problem in the country, they began to fund research in order to establish a treatment, which has proved to be significantly helpful for those that have become infected…the only issue was how expensive it would be to obtain the medications.  Nowadays, there are screenings and tests that allow us to tell if somebody has become infected and what we can do for them before it progresses.  Although the disease is not yet eradicated, we are on an upward trend to eventually eliminate the AIDS epidemic altogether.

HR: The Case Study PowerPoint, and the Documentary on HIV.  No unauthorized aid was used.

Cholera is an extremely devastating disease that has a severe impact on all those that it affects.  It causes large quantities of water in the body to be lost because of the diarrhea and vomiting, which can ultimately cause the individual to die within 24 hours.  It is often found in poorer countries such as Africa, South Asia, India, and Bangladesh and has had seven major pandemics across the world.

The Classical biotype of the disease was mainly responsible for the first pandemics, which occurred in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  Around the mid 20^th century, the El Tor biotype caused the seventh pandemic.  The difficulty in the El Tor biotype is that it is a much more advanced agent that can survive longer periods in aquatic environments.  Often, those with the El Tor don’t exhibit any symptoms and are able to travel, which spreads transmission across the world.

Social Structures cause the disease to spread across poorer nations.  Since the disease is spread by oral-fecal routes, countries with poor sanitation and sewage systems can easily harbor Cholera.  Jon Snow studied the disease and realized that it was being caused by the contaminated water systems.  His research led to the development of sewage and drainage systems inside of homes and public spaces in order to safely take potentially contaminated water away from unharmed drinking water.

Epidemics occurring to this day are typically caused because of the contamination of the only water sources in nations such as Bangladesh, Yemen, and other localities.  This is because people take water out of rivers, creeks, and standing water to use for hydration.  The main issue with this is that those same water sources are used for eliminating human waste.  This is the perfect situation for Cholera to develop and spread from person to person.

Most recently, Haiti has experienced a Cholera outbreak due to the significant natural disasters that has occurred.  With earthquakes and hurricanes, intense flooding has caused their main water sources to become contaminated with fecal matter.  As a result, tons of Haitians became subject to the disease.  To help with the outbreak, many clinics were established to save those effected.  Currently, Haiti is attempting to create outhouses and other means of eliminating waste so that there is no chance at contamination.

HR: The PowerPoint and videos in class.  No unauthorized aid was used.

Tuberculosis is a disease that is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and mainly effects the lungs.  TB is thought to have appeared anywhere from 20,000-15,000 years ago and has been documented roughly 5,000 years ago in Egypt.  Since the first documented cases of TB, the disease has progressed over many years up until the present day…at this rate, we are unsure if TB will be completely eradicated.

The significant TB epidemic started in 17^th century Europe and traveled to America in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.  It spread significantly fast because of the poor sanitary conditions of European and

American cities as well as the close living quarters shared by many tenants.  It spread so quickly and abruptly that it killed nearly 1,000 per every 100,000 people.

As immigration to America began to occur at higher rates, the tenements began to quickly overcrowd and spread TB.  Contributing factors included poor working spaces, which often had poor ventilation and lighting, and mud cellars which required people to live in filthy conditions.  These factors led to many public education works that would tell people to cover their cough, not spit, and stay out of harms way with their actions.

TB also started to evolve into drug-resistant forms, which were much harder to treat.  This is because the strains get used to having the antibiotic in a persons system and as they continually tried to treat the disease, it would become immune to said treatment.  This created a huge problem for people trying to get rid of the horrible disease.  Additionally, if somebody already had a compromised immune system from another disease such as HIV, they were ineffective in trying to treat the TB because it could fully overtake the system.  This has led to very difficult attempts to eradicate the disease because it is ever evolving.

HR: The PowerPoint, class notes, and the video. No unauthorized aid was used.

To the Irish people, the potato was their whole life.  It was the main source of food for the nation and they were dependent on the healthy growth of the crop in order to maintain their survival.  Often times, they would eat potatoes for every meal.  Since it was so versatile, the people of Ireland were able to make many dishes and thrive off of the starchy matter found inside.  Until the blight occurred, this was their main source of living.

The Severity of the potato blight originated from the massive dependence the people of Ireland had on the crop.  If there were other food sources that they could grow, the blight may have not have had as big of an effect on them.  From 1845 to 1852, however, the blight was so bad across the entire nation that mass starvation occurred killing nearly 1 million people and causing many more to emigrate out of Ireland.

The blight was caused by a pathogen known as Phytophthora infestans which was believed to have originated from Mexico and made its way to Ireland via trade vessels etc.  Before the origin was known, many blames were placed on God, the soil, insects and many other means of trying to understand why the Irish people were so devastated. In addition to the pathogen, abiotic factors played a role such as rain washing the pathogen through the soil and infecting other plants, replanting healthy crops in infected soil, and so many more that caused it to spread so rapidly.

Due to the malnutrition caused by the lack of food, the Irish people were much more susceptible to infectious diseases since their immune systems were “down.” The people of Ireland became infected diarrheal diseases and cholera, which made them closer to death due to their susceptibility from malnutrition.  As mentioned before, this caused the citizens to flee the country and remove themselves from the horrible situation.

HR: The Powerpoint and films watched in class. No unauthorized aid was used.

Smallpox is a devastating disease that attacks people of all ages, races, cultures, and social classes.  It is highly contagious and extremely deadly.  In the 20^th century, it killed approximately 300 million people.

Smallpox is believed to have originated around 10,000 BCE when humans began to domesticate animals for personal use.  After the disease was developed, it began to infect humans from all cultures and eventually became an epidemic.  The first suspected Smallpox endemic region was believed to be Egypt around the time of 1500 BCE.  The evidence to date suggests that mummies had scarring on their faces from the disease, which may have caused them to meet their untimely death.

Within a few hundred years after the disease was seen in Egypt, smallpox began to appear in Asian and European countries, most likely from trade and travel.  However, the Crusades played a major role in the spread of the disease.  With individuals being infected and having no knowledge, they were easily able to spread it to their enemies while in close combat fighting their religious war.

In Central America, the Spanish explorers spread the disease to Amerindians and ravaged their population.  The Amerindians had never been exposed to such a disease, therefore, they had no possible antibodies for it and were subject to complete effects of the disease.  This allowed new explorers to quickly take over the areas because the native populations were dying off and they were doing so very quickly.  Since the majority of the native populations were dying off, a need arose for the import of a workforce that would not be susceptible.  To combat this issue, slaves from Africa were rapidly brought over to the New World because they had mostly been exposed to Smallpox in their home countries, therefore, they were immune.

When the British came to America, they also used the disease to get what they wanted. In 1763, the British used Smallpox as a way to purposefully kill off they native population in order to take over their homeland.  This was the first instance of Germ Warfare and was conducted by taking items from a known Smallpox clinic and infiltrating them into nearby tribes.  Once again, Smallpox made a significant dent in the native population.

Throughout the centuries, Smallpox was a disease that killed off many populations regardless of their background.  It was a nasty and practically unavoidable disease that destroyed homelands until its eventually eradication in 1980.

HR: The Powerpoint/Class Notes.  No unauthorized aid was used.

Syphilis (Treponema pallidum) is a venereal disease that causes lesions, rashes on the foot and hands, and ultimately cardiovascular and skeletal issues if untreated for a number of years.  It is easily transmitted by close sexual contact or through the mother upon the birthing process.  Many people may not know that they have contracted syphilis because it is known as the “great imitator,” meaning that it presents many signs and symptoms of other common diseases.

Syphilis was heavily studied in the early 20^th century in an experiment known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, which targeted African Americans in order to assess how the disease progressed over time.  The issue with this experiment, per the documentary, was that the patients were not informed that they were being given the disease and therefore, could not ask for treatment.  The purpose of this was so that they effects could be studied over a number of years.  It was unethical of the doctors because they would not allow the subjects to seek treatment and instead, they killed off the subjects to study how the disease effected lifestyles.

What does this experiment say to future experiments on certain ethnic groups around the country and around the world? Basically, it gives the idea that certain lives are expendable in the name of science.  That statement is blatantly untrue. It creates an image of governmental experiments that they are highly unethical and okay to be performed.  The Tuskegee experiment was an unfortunate occurrence in American medicine even though the outcome provided great insight as to how the disease progressed.  This experiment leaves reluctance for future generations across all minorities to want to participate because they will be unsure if they will be treated the same as white Americans in experimentation.

HR: The PowerPoint on Syphilis and the Documentary watched in class.  No unauthorized aid was used.

The “plague” as we know it is attributed to the Black Death that occurred all over the world in the 1300’s.  It is believed to have started in Asia somewhere around West China and ultimately traveled through Europe wreaking havoc everywhere it went.  Originally, it was attributed to the Mongol’s who were infected in their native land and as they traveled to expand their empire, brought the disease with them.  They made significant progress in their conquest and caused the disease to spread rapidly across the land.  Later on, however, the disease was found to have traveled on trade ships via rats and fleas, which made the disease spread quicker than it could be handled during the time period.

Being that there was little technology during the period, there was no way to combat the spread of disease other than avoiding other humans, which was not practical because of the close proximity of the living quarters.  This caused those that were infected to spread the disease to their families without knowing that they had it.  It was often too late to know that one was infected with the disease until theu developed bubos on the neck, had high fevers and had massive hemorrhaging.  Since there was no way to know how the disease was occurring in high numbers, people turned the blame to many scapegoats.

Jews, witches, and God were often blamed for the massive spread of the disease.  It got so out of hand, that the Christian followers within society decided to burn witches and Jews at the stake to rid the disease from their villages.  This caused huge societal changes to keep the disease from getting to the place of living.  Nobles fled to the countryside while the poor were left in their homes, mass panic ensued, and religion became a way to cope.  People prayed continuously to ward off the evil spirit of the disease, which caused the following of Christ to become even more prominent in daily life.

Today, the plague is a seldom occurrence around the world.  If a case occurs, it is often caused by wild animal species infecting house pets, such as a cat,  and then spreading it to their owners (Gaylord 2014).  It is transmitted by fleas that feast on a carrier species and will then be spread to multiple other organisms.  Luckily, most cases are isolated, but there is always the potential for rapid spread with enhanced travel technology such as planes and international travel.  If a case occurs, we isolate and quarantine the individual as well as conduct multiple test to understand what disease has occurred and how we can fix the problem.

In Madagascar, the plague has been attributed to the poor socioeconomic status of the country.  It basically provides the perfect environment for the disease to occur and spread rapidly, which is why outbreaks have recently occurred (Duplantier et. al 2005).  The close living quarters and poor hygiene habits cause the disease to spread much like It did with the original 1300s outbreak.

Help Received:

Duplantier, J.M., Duchemin J.B., Chanteau S., Carniel E., 2005. From the recent lessons of the

Malagasy foci toward a global understanding of the factors involved in plague

reemergence. Vet. Res 36: 437-453.

Gaylord, Paul. 2014. Experience: I caught the plague from my cat. The Guardian. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/31/i-caught-plague-from-my-cat

History Channel Documentary and Notes Taken

No unauthorized help was used.

Throughout history, people, places, and society has changed rapidly, which has contributed to the appearance of emerging infectious diseases.  These diseases often appear without warning and without a means of control because they are unpredictable.  Humans, animals, and vectors of transmission are all interconnected more than they have ever been and this often times contributes to the flaring up of new diseases.  As humans move around the globe like they began to do approximately 7 million years ago, they bring with them factors that are not accustomed to the region and cause massive changes to the ecosystem.

Society began with groups of hunters and gatherers that moved around often, had less children, and were not subjected to living near their own feces and waste products.  These societies, therefore, were less susceptible to the transmission of disease because they were not living in the same conditions that they worked.  Although they still acquired disease such as intestinal worms and the occasional animal-borne illness, they rarely had an effect on the entire group.  By the time 8000 BCE came around, humans had evolved their society to stay located in one place and had begun to domesticate animals, which led to a whole new problem with regards to disease.

When humans began to settle in one location, they were able to have more offspring and domesticate animals for their personal use.  The denser population led to more instances where animals could pass along their disease to humans.  These animals would often times live within the homes of their owners and shared the same water supply.  This led to the transmission of illness rapidly due to the lack of sanitation.  Since sanitation didn’t particularly exist in these societies, humans lived around their own waste products, which attracted vectors and small rodents that could carry pathogens from human to human.

As populations grew, several diseases became prominent as a result of the societal change.  These diseases include: smallpox, mumps, leprosy, measles, polio, HIV, Ebola, and Zika.  Many of these diseases spawned from animals and were transferred to humans due to the close proximity of living.  Although we have eradicated several of the diseases in the U.S., some still wreak havoc in third world nations due to the societal living standards.  Much of the spread is attributed poor hygiene, animals living with humans, and poor sanitation.  When people travel to these third world countries, they often times return carrying the diseases with them.  Since transportation technology is much better now than it was just 50 years ago, these diseases can spread around the world in a matter of hours, which leads to many issues that were never before seen.

HR: The resources on canvas (Powerpoint: “The Price of Being Sedentary,” and Textbook).  No unauthorized aid was used.