Some cultural and societal factors are the reasons for the expansions of plagues and viruses. To start, the creation of civilization from the hunter-gatherer system caused the opportunity for bacteria and viruses to spread amongst the earliest towns. The domestication of animals also allowed for the species-species jumps (bird flu, swine flu, etc.) to happen. Another reason was for the unknowing of microorganisms helped spread diseases. Microbiology was completely unheard of in ancient times, and even up until recent medical advances, germs were not thought of to be real, much less the cause for diseases.

Starting civilizations, again, was a huge jumpstart for diseases to gain some ground on spreading their genetic material. Most viruses start in animals, and with hunter gatherers, infected animals wouldn’t be eaten, not allowing for species-species jumps for bacteria. After the domestication of animals, humans now started living with certain animals in order to farm land and grow food. This allowed for humans to now be near these infected animals. However, it needed a vector in order to transport the diseases from species to species. Mosquitoes, fleas, etc. were huge benefactors for spreading diseases between species. SO domestication became a problem on the disease front, however, the benefits still outweighed the costs.

The unknowingness of microbiology also was a huge problem for many of the medical professions, getting into the middle ages. The best example of this was the “Bubonic Plague” or Black Death. Many doctors just believed this to be an act of God, or something else that was out of reach for humans to process, such as the alignment of the planets. This unknowingness allowed for the disease to just spread among the population. People didn’t know to stay away from infected people, which allowed the infections to spread faster and kill more people. Today, the knowledge of microbiology allows us to get a jumpstart on finding cures, but we are still susceptible to being hit again with new diseases.