Gregory Parham
BI-245X
07/24/19
Dr. Hinks
Reflective Essay
Throughout history, many civilizations and societies were forced to change because of a number of diseases breaking out. Along with the number of diseases breaking out, societies dealt with the emergence of epidemic diseases. In artifact 7, it talked about the disease of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a serious infectious bacterial disease that affect the lungs. Tuberculosis is spread by way of air, due to dirty and crowded living conditions, the disease spread very easily. When people migrated from different countries to America, the disease was spread very quickly since it is spread through the air and by coughing and spitting. Once someone is a different area got it, they spread it quickly not knowing they had the disease. A huge cycle formed because of this. It then became a huge epidemic. Domesticating animals helped with the spread of diseases because animals carried any things that humans did not have. They also attracted many pests that spread sickness. For example, mosquitoes. Mosquitos would get the blood from animals then mix it with our blood. In doing this we then become sick and new diseases are made and spread. So even though domestication animals were very good for societies in having food and clothes, it also came with a huge deal of diseases and deaths. Another reference is artifact 9 pertaining to HIV and AIDS. HIV is contracted from touching and being infected by contaminated meat of hunted chimpanzees. The disease was mostly transferred through having sex, because the disease was spread this way, and so many people enjoyed doing the task that spread it, as well as not protecting themselves. Most diseases emerged in societies because of how bad their living conditions were, but in this case, everybody was able to have this disease. People were ignorant to the knowledge of how it spread, and their crazy ways of curing it such as having sex with a virgin just helped keep spreading the epidemic disease more and more. Many people didn’t want to take the safe route of using condoms and spreading the awareness.
Our modern society will be and is affected by these emerging and re-emerging diseases. Emerging diseases are infectious diseases that newly appear in a population or has been known for some time but rapidly increasing. Societies are affected due to these diseases you have to watch a lot of the things we do in our daily lives. You have to make sure you stay as clean as possible, and make sure your living conditions are up to par. If they aren’t you are putting yourself at risk of catching something very deadly every single day. Also, you have to make sure the people you surround yourself around are clean before you partake in activities. When in the past, you did not have to worry as much. We are affected in the way we do business with outside counties and cities because of previous diseases we have to check the food and many other products to make sure that there isn’t anything harmful in them that can-do great damage to our people and other crops and food. The first thing in treating someone when sick that could totally benefit this is noticing that many people are getting sick, we know exactly what to do and usually know how to handle the situation. Back in the day, they didn’t know how to process diseases, so went left really bad and fast!
A plague affected a huge amount of people. A plague is a contagious bacterial disease that affects humans and animals and is caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestisas. Written in artifact 1, there were societies that were filled with thousands of people, but after a while due to the plague that all changed. The plague killed hundreds of thousands of people. It weakened humans’ immune systems, which led to humans became more susceptible to diseases. With the diseases outbreaking, it caused many problems economically, politically, and human interventions because millions of people were dying. Due to this vaccines and medicines were created to combat the diseases that were popping up. As seen in artifact 3, in trying to control the disease, there were preventative actions put in place where certain food was not allowed to be imported or exported due to it hurting people. This was put in place because they didn’t want the disease to be spread to certain foods as well. With doing that it hurt the economy of some people which ultimately could hurt the society because many people became poor then sick and end up getting diseases because they are not living in good, safe environments. Plagues have affected the outcome of wars. Wars were lost not because was one place was stronger than the other, but because one places immune system carried a disease that the other society was not immune to, because of this it made them weak, sick, and not able to fight at full potential, and ultimately lose without a fighting chance because their immune system was too weak. Also seen in artifact 3 dealing with the plague, because of these outbreaks many people’s freedom was taken away due to quarantining. Quarantining is the place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to an infectious or contagious disease are placed. This affected many societies because if just one person was found to be sick with a major disease, no one was allowed to go into the area, and no one was allowed to leave the area.
In the world now, we have a role in promoting emerging and re-emerging diseases and not caring and taking risks in a lot of things. We can control what we can control such as everyone knowing about what HIV and AIDS are, but people still don’t practice safe sex and knowing that you need to cover your mouth when you cough, and people do not do it which spreads sickness. Everyday people use the bathroom and do not wash their hands, and touch everything including foods which is a quick way to spread sickness. We have to make the change, but it starts individually. We have to preach the right things to ourselves and to people around us, Be the difference and spread it others, as long as you benefitting yourself.