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Historical:

As cultures and societies have shifted and changed, so have the pathogens that follow them. Some pathogens disappear from groups due to the way they live. Some, like the plague, appear because certain lifestyles and cultures cater to them. For the most part, this has to do with poor sanitation. Germs and the practice of cleaning tools, dirty clothing, utensils, etc. were not even known about until pretty recently in human history.

Back when humans were hunter-gatherers, disease was far less common. Rotting meat and still water were not sitting around, and because people had to carry everything, not much was carried with them, so exposure to parasites and bacteria from festering food was less common. Bands of traveling nomads were isolated, so groups of people rarely mingled with each other. When people started to settle down and grew crops and raised animals, disease skyrocketed. People lived around the animals, so they were exposed to parasites. Food was kept out, which invited bacteria into jugs of milk, exposed meat, and feces. Trade was introduced, and people were mingling with each other; spreading foreign agents amongst individuals who had never been exposed to them before. Irrigation, such as with the Egyptians was left water standing still. When disease struck, it affected anybody in close vicinity. This was what happened with the plague.

During the middle ages, sanitation was not only poor, but the commoners who had little money all lived close together. Families shared one-bedroom-sized housing areas; sometimes with other families, while the wealthy were able to lock themselves away as a means of quarantine. Priests would often receive and spread the disease in a matter of days because they were healing and blessing the afflicted. Transportation was by boat, which housed the very source of the plague: fleas on rats. This method of transportation and trade spread the disease throughout Europe.

Current Applications:

We may have more cures today for diseases that used to be the downfall of societies in ancient times, but with that technology we also have a higher risk of being affected by disease. Fast transportation often leads to outbreaks half way around the world from where it originated. People travel before symptoms of a disease even begin to present themselves. Antibiotics no longer work as well as they used to because of overuse and, thus, antibiotic resistance. The high cost of producing new antibiotics also makes it more difficult to combat these resistances. Immigration also introduces new diseases into populations that haven’t necessarily been as exposed to before. Technology has also increased the rate of global warming, which affects entire ecosystems. Pathogens mutate due to temperature, making them more resistant to certain medications. Some are able to survive in different hosts, or are transmissible year-round instead of just one or two seasons due to the fact that the colder seasons are no longer cold enough to keep them at bay. The world wide web also has an effect on being able to control people during these outbreaks because communication is so quick, and often inaccurate, that people begin to panic, self-diagnose, or come to outrageous conclusions. We live in a day and age where survival of the fittest has essentially been practically eliminated via technology from the human race, but that technology could eventually bring it back around ten-fold.