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Artifact #3

The plague which will be mentioned in this artifact will be the one also known as the Black Death, which occurred in the mid-1300s and spread all across Europe and Asia. The disease spread very quickly and killed millions of people. There are a few reasons as to why the disease spread so quickly. One of the reasons was because trade between Europe and Asia happened often, and the Silk Road was a main route between the two continents. Which meant many different people of different nations would come in contact with each other quite often. Another reason was due to the lack of technology and belief in technology, did people not understand that there were microscopic organisms that were being transferred, or that they needed to wash their hands more often, or not to touch people that died from the disease without protective wear. Because the disease could be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets, and that animals could also contract the disease then spread it, this made the disease easier to spread. Also if someone was in the respiratory stage of the plague, unless they were given antibiotics, which they did not have at the time, they would most likely die in the next day or two. People called Flagellants started to whip and flog themselves just as Jesus had received before they died. They were Christian fanatics and started to attack Jews, thinking they were the cause of the disease. It was thought that the plague was a biblical one and God was punishing them for the sins that htye committed. The Church asked for them to stop what they were doing, which eventually got the Flagellants killed, but the common people liked them more often than not because they seemed to actually trying to stop the plague, while the church did nothing. The rich left the cities and went up into the hills, where they waited it out until the madness had stopped, saving many of them while half their town or more died in their absence. New laws on how the dead must be buried and how they were buried were put in place due to have how many people were dying a day. And because of the high mortality rate, cities started dumping bodies into the river and water systems because they had nowhere else to bury the dead. The word “quarantine” became used, which came from the Italian word forty, which is how long people would be left in isolation in an attempt to stop the further spread of disease. A short-term societal effect was depression, people drank in the streets, some neglected their appearance, and some neglected their livestock. The art style of death macabre came about, depicting skeletons and death in many paintings. Some positives did occur, people who were peasants, were now able to hold their own land or top pay for their work. Also, the self-standard or living, before cities were overpopulated and malnutrition due to not enough food for everyone, was not a problem anymore. In the 21^st century, there has been an epidemic in Madagascar. In most parts of the world, people are able to know if an area of animals has the plague and then quarantines that area and makes sure people do not touch the animals there. But because Madagascar is encroaching more closer on urban settings, as well as poor living conditions, it makes it hard to keep people apart. The conditions in Madagascar are perfect for rats and fleas to thrive in.

Works cited

https://www.history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death

In class movie

https://www.brighthubeducation.com/history-homework-help/88775-social-effects-of-the-black-death/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_century_Madagascar_plague_outbreaks

Article #2

A zoonotic disease is one that can be transferred from animal to human. Zoonotic diseases that are emerging and reemerging can be problematic. These diseases seem to be having more cases yearly due to the rise in global population. This in turn leads to more homes having to be built and encroaching on places that were before untouched, or because more livestock is needed, the more space needed to feed these animals makes them come in contact with animals they would not have previously. According to livescience.com it is estimated that 60% of human disease and 75% of emerging diseases are caused by zoonotic diseases, with most coming from livestock, such as pigs, cattle, and chicken. Many of these zoonotic diseases that are reemerging can be quite infectious and deadly. For example, the bubonic plague first started from fleas transported along the silk road, which then infected other animals and lead to 75 million deaths in the 14^Th century. Ebola, which is thought to have been transferred from bats, killed 11,000 people from 2013-2016 and had a death rate of 90%. The problem with so many of the infectious diseases that are emerging, is that we probably don’t have a vaccine on hand to administer. This can cause problematic as we have seen recently with the COVID-19 virus. Due to how the disease spreads and our lack of vaccine, it makes it very difficult to stop the spread and isolate the people who are infected with the disease. This can cause many deaths while trying to develop a vaccine and even if there is a vaccine made, there probably will not be enough made to vaccinate everyone who needs it, resulting in more deaths but could stop the further spread of the disease. In some cultures they need to be close to the body for burial or in some countries, they are too poor to get medical care, so they try and care for the people themselves, only to contract the disease and spread it even further when they have to go out in public to get supplies. Some cultures do not trust doctors and do not listen to them, or they try and hide the ill person, so the community does not fear them. The answer to the question “Are we ready for a pandemic?” And the answer to that is no. Depending on what the disease is, if we already have a vaccine for it, then we will be better prepared in stopping the spread, but we don’t have enough vaccines to completely protect everyone. And if it is not a disease, we already have a vaccine for, it will make the situation much worse, causing much more harm than if we already had a vaccine for it. The best way to be effective is to try and prevent the diseases from occurring, educating people on cleanliness, and telling medical personnel quickly if you think something is wrong so that they can try and diagnose you as early and quickly as possible. The best way to deal with xenophobia is educating the public on where the disease is and who has it. Another way to not have people freaking out, is making sure the media reports the information correctly and does not sensationalize the stories to try and get views, because it would only end up making things worse.

Works cited

https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200221-sitrep-32-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=4802d089_2

https://www.livescience.com/21426-global-zoonoses-diseases-hotspots.html

https://www.livescience.com/12951-10-infectious-diseases-ebola-plague-influenza.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-crisis-outbreak-timeline-disease-virus-africa-congo-facts-who-a8357676.html

Artifact #1

Throughout histories plagues have been prevalent in our society from time to time. Even in society where hygiene is much better than when it was hundreds of years ago. The main reasons a disease spreads is due to its transmissibility and resilience of the microorganisms. Once people started to form tribes and live closer, it makes much easier for a disease to get spread from person to person, or even animal to person. Today you see this even more to be true with globalization, urbanization, climate change, and deforestation. With humans building so closely to the environment, animals that once did not come into human contact, now are frequently seen and interact with humans. These animals can carry unseen and unknown zoonotic diseases, meaning that they can be passed from animal to animal as well as person to person. This can cause a problem if the person contracts some microorganism that is unknown and not studied, and has no cure to treat the disease, or the microbe is resistant to the known cures. Antibiotic resistant bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus. This is caused in various ways; many people are treated with the same drug over and over such as penicillin, or the bacteria became resistant from the wastewater of hospitals where antibiotics can be found in the urine from patients. In any case, this can cause many problems and causing the patient to have chronic symptoms or die from their symptoms. The overcrowding of cities and how densely populated they are, is also a current issue. This allows for transmissible diseases to have a higher chance of affecting another person and spreading even further and creating issues for hospitals and healthcare personnel. Air borne diseases such as measles or the new outbreak of the corona virus in China has made the infectious disease a nightmare due to it starting a highly populated city of 11 million people and how globalized the city is. Not so much in China, but in the United States, there is a group of people termed “anti-vaxxers” who do not believe in vaccinating themselves or their children. This has led to children, usually of young ages of contracting diseases, such has measles, which has even caused some to die. This comes from the parents believing vaccines are bad, it causes autism in young children, and then letting the child interact with others from various places with a very weak and new immune system. Some religions also take the same stance in not allowing their people of worship to get vaccinations, this has most notably happened in Thailand and Indonesia with the Islamic religion in 2017. For a historical perceptive, many ideologies of hygiene have changed as well as development in medicine and public health. Some developments such as, wastewater treatment facilities, cleaning of the water, sewage systems, and garbage disposal have all helped with reducing infectious diseases. Cholera for example can manifest from dirty and untreated water. Regulation of food, in most countries, have led to a reduction in diseases, the corona virus is in a country where a wider variety of animals are eaten, and not so closely regulated, which is a cause for this outbreak. Years ago, doctors did not wash their hands or wear protection while operating on their patients or giving them a check-up. Whatever bacteria was on the doctor’s hands or was inside the person’s body, most likely got transferred and led infection and disease. Also, the ability to trace the breakout of the disease back to its source was not capable of the technology, depending on when you are looking back in time. If the source is not stopped and eradicated, it can cause even further spread of the disease. An example of this would be the epidemic of the Bubonic plague otherwise known as the black death in the 14^th century. It is known today that the disease was carried on ships by rats which were given to them by fleas. The plague is a zoonotic disease and can be easily passed from animal to animal as well as person to person, which is what made the plague so deadly. If sailors, and cities which had ports had known this was the cause, the impact the plague made could have been greatly reduced than a third of the European population.

Works Cited

https://www.ancient.eu/article/782/justinians-plague-541-542-ce/

https://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/about.html

https://www.vaccinateyourfamily.org/questions-about-vaccines/outbreaks-of-vaccine-preventable-diseases/

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/religion-vaccination-confusion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague