Reflections on the Relationship between Epidemics and Societal Impact

Disease has continually occurred in the background throughout history. Where wars would take the lives of hundreds of thousands, diseases that would take place behind the battle lines killed men by the millions. It is something that has existed alongside humanity ever since man first domesticized animals and began living in such close proximity to one another (Artifact 1). Different diseases that we understand to be extremely dangerous, such as Smallpox (Artifact 4), would go through whatever small tribe it sprung up in and deal a high death toll but stop due to the small amounts of people that were around. Once humans began to farm and exist in clusters, diseases that once had difficulty finding hosts could cause massive epidemics.

During the Middle Ages, the Church was at the center of everything. People would go and beg for mercy for their sins and get the blessing of the priest that was presiding over that particular place of worship. When the Plague struck with such ferocity, people believed that it was an act of God to punish them for being wicked. Yet, the death toll was so high that priests would no longer perform the rituals before burial in fear of becoming sick themselves (Artifact 1). Even the bells that would ring due to news, or marriage, would no longer toll for the dead because it would ring constantly (Artifact 1). Slowly, people began to turn from the Church and believe in radical members calling for drastic methods in order to hopefully change the situation. The Church would see a decline in power among the peasant populations during the worst times of the Plague (Artifact 1).

Another example would be the infamous Columbian Exchange. A term that scholars today use in order to mock the horrible exchange of property in the New World only to receive deadly diseases that would destroy villages that did not have antibodies. Diseases such as Smallpox would rip through the Native populations around areas than those from the Old World were settled or had conducted some sort of trade (Artifact 4). This would allow for the bacteria to do most of the legwork for conquering the New World allowing the vastly outnumbered Europeans to gain an advantage, both in awe of their “inability” to get the diseases that struck. However, it was a two-way exchange where those that explored the New World would bring back Syphilis. By today’s standards, Syphilis is curable with a prescription of antibiotics such as Penicillin. Yet, around the years of the 1500s, the disease would have horrible and quick effects. Individuals would die in pain and have to endure large amounts of deformities (Artifact 3).

With humans beginning to grow in population, so did the need for expansion. The human population began to chop up and eat into the wild, where a disease that had existed only in animals now were given a new option. Diseases like the Plague and Smallpox would eventually jump from the animal that it was endemic in due to the irregularities of bacteria and its ability to mutate/adapt (Artifact 1 & 4). With populations living in close proximity and no longer moving around, this causes issues with things like human waste. Conditions that were created by living in close proximity would allow for diseases like Cholera to exist (Artifact 7). These all do not include the overall impact that humans are having on the environment. Increasing global temperatures weather causing for hotter or colder climates than usual. This can lead to poor crops and even violent storms that can cause havoc on a society. With lower food sources and possible damage from unusual storms will lead to famine and starvation which lowers the herd immunity. Stressful environments offer a safe haven to diseases that may not have been very deadly, to begin with, but with lower immune systems and despondent conditions, these diseases can have a heavier impact. With changing environments comes migration of animals to find new homes bringing with them new zoonotic diseases that could affect the new ecosystem as well as cause health issues to an unprepared population.

Our society today would face an interesting dilemma that has not been an issue until the last century. With increasing globalization diseases can be spread quickly and unknowingly to populations that are not prepared for the disease. A little on the extreme side for an example would be HIV. After infecting the first human from what is believed to be another case of bushmeat zoonotic source, the disease spread throughout the world (Artifact 8). Only really appearing at the time of the 1980s it was ignored and treated much like Cholera was. Cholera was believed to be just the poor man’s disease since it usually was associated with filth and living with rodents while HIV was mostly attributed as a gay man’s disease (Artifact 7 & 8). Now, HIV has changed how we as a society handle needles and those that we come across in emergency situations. In modern countries, it was first a disease that people would ostracize and reject those that had it in fear of getting the disease from regular day-to-day contact. Now, even though there is still some of this fear today in modern countries, it is still as bad as it was from the beginning in places like Africa (Artifact 8).  Yet, in Africa, it also contributes to the difficulty in dealing with other infectious diseases that are usually kept away by a healthy immune system.

It has become the regular treatment method to try to fight these diseases with antibiotics. In lots of cases, this prevents infections and does cure diseases like Syphilis quickly (Artifact 3). However, recently we have begun to witness disease becoming resistant to the drugs that we throw at it. What is known as Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) develops when people do not follow the treatment plan that has been set out for them. As wild as this idea sounds, it is not far from the truth due to the adverse side effects that the disease can have on the individual. Things like depression, internal damage, and excessive weight gain make taking these drugs extremely difficult even though the disease like TB can be very dangerous. Already difficult to treat, TB has a cocktail of different drugs that must be taken on time every day until the disease is fully gone. However, as stated before, if this is not done correctly it can lead to issues involving the mutation of the bacteria and become resistant to the drugs being used. It is still possible for it to get worse when MDR-TB turns into Extensively Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB) which is pretty much a death sentence. These new strains, or “Superbugs” are still as contagious as the original strain making it very dangerous to anyone it may come into contact with.