Over the course of this semester, I have learned that there is a deep connection between societies and their impact on the emergence and re-emergence of infectious diseases and epidemics. Many factors throughout history have contributed to this societal impact- poverty, urbanization, human-animal interactions, and sanitation, to name a few. However, I have found that the impact human movement on infectious disease emergence and re-emergence through means of trade- to include land and sea routes and the slave trade- immigration, war, and expansion has been the most distinctive contributing factor that we have learned about.
Caravan and shipping routes used for the importation and exportation of goods have carried epidemic causing infectious diseases from one part of the world to another for centuries. Smallpox was endemic throughout Eurasia by 1000 A.D., having been carried along trade routes across countries and continents- spreading as far as West Africa.1 This disease was also introduced and reintroduced to port cities through shipping trade and the slave trade.1 Smallpox wasn’t the only infectious disease to be transmitted this way. Many, many other diseases have been transmitted in through trade, such as cholera. Although cholera first originated in India, it was the movement of British ships and that would first spread the disease and promote its transmission across the world.2 The slave trade carried cholera down the coast of East Africa while shipping trade also brought it to port cities, such as New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia, just as it did with smallpox.2
Immigration often brought new diseases to virgin communities where the infectious agents devastated the populations. Smallpox, for example, was carried by Europeans to the New World were it killed numerous Native Americans that had never been exposed to the disease before.1 With the invention of trains, cars, planes, and other modes of transportation, the spread of diseases when moving from one part of the world to another has accelerated.3 The potato blight that hit Ireland in the 1840s caused many to emmigrate in search of better living circumstances.4 Immigrants that came to America in most cases found themselves living in tenement houses, where the quality of living was not much better than what they left behind. It was in these overcrowded, poorly ventilated houses that deadly diseases spread from person to person- diseases like tuberculosis, yellow fever, and typhus.4 Irish immigrants were not only exposed to conditions that bred and harbored disease in their new homes, they also carried diseases with them from Ireland. They were responsible for causing a cholera epidemic originating in Canada, that soon spread to the United States and across the whole continent.2
Whenever humans have sought to expand empires and territories through exploration or war, diseases are transmitted from one society to another. Sometimes the transmission of infectious diseases in this context were purely acciedental, but other times, the diseases were used as another mechanism of war. The Spanish Flu devastated the world population beginning in 1918.3 This influenza likely originated in the United States, first affecting soldiers, who then brought the disease to Europe as they fought the Great War.5 Much earlier than this, smallpox made its rounds in the first century, moving from Mesopotamia to Italy during the Peloponnesian War where it killed the Roman emperor and contributed to bring about the end of the war.1 Smallpox similarly traveled with the crusaders back and forth between Asia and Europe. It arrived with the Spanish conquistadors in Latin America were it killed warrior civilizations such as the Inca, making it easy for the Spaniards to conquer them.1 Cholera, for instance, was brought to Muscat when English troops were sent to supress slave trade.2 These incidents were not planned to utilize disease as a weapon, rather, this is what occurred as travelers carried novel pathogens to virgin communities.
There are many other factors and nuances that are associated with the nature of infectious diseases, the epidemics they cause, and how they have shaped and changed societies through out history. Encountering new diseases has prompted people through the ages to change the ways they approach treatment and medicine. It has prompted them to learn about what causes diseases- what behaviors put people at risk and how these diseases spread and so much more. The assignments we have had through out this class to write these artifacts have helped me to see the finer aspects of disease interactions with cultures. In order to effectively respond to the writing prompts, I had to research the disease outside of the class to supplement the readings and films we learned from in class. I learned that there is so much more to epidemics than the virulence of the pathogen and the body count left in its wake. Before this class I never thought twice about the fact that certain epidemics influenced the way people viewed religious pracitces or how it gave certain groups the upperhand in war. I found myself looking for additional videos on youtube to learn more about the epidemics we were discussing in class and I found perspectives that taught about those diseases in a totally different, but complimentary and related context than the ones provided in class. This combination of in class and outside learning kept me interested and engaged in the material the throughout the whole semester and helped me to gain my own understanding and opinions on the effect that these diseases have had on cultures through the ages.