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Plague Information And Facts Essay

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It is often thought that the course of history relies on wars and competing ideas. The powerful individuals of Presidents, Monarchs, and Dictators whose actions and decisions can shift a society's development in one way or another. Some are nasty, ruthless, deadly - and microscopic. Diseases have altered history. Smallpox Information and Facts, as well as Plague Information and Facts, are both reference materials authored and published by National Geographic. Formed in 1888, National Geographic, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. The articles describe the diseases causes and symptoms, its early victims and infamy, the variations, vaccinations and the fear of the future. The Smallpox epidemics …show more content…

The four variations of Smallpox are Variola Major, Variola Minor, Hemorrhagic, and Malignant. Variola Major was the most common form of the disease and the most lethal. Variola Minor caused a milder version of the the disease and is fatal in less than one percent of cases. The other two, Hemorrhagic and Malignant, invariably results in death. The Plague has three specific types, Bubonic, Septicemic, and Pneumonic. Bubonic plague is the diseases most common form, and refers to the painfully swollen lymph nodes that appear around the groin, armpit, or neck. The Septicemic plague is contacted through fleas, or contact with plague infected body matter, and spreads in the bloodstream. The most infections types is the Pneumonic plague. The Pneumonic plague is an advanced stage of the bubonic plague, and is airborne and spreads directly, person to person. The bacteria that is the source of the plague is called Yersinia pestis, and is a mutant variety or closely related bacteria. Y. pestis is handicapped, unable to survive without a host and an inability to penetrate and hide in the host's cells. Both the Smallpox and the Plague are deadly without proper treatment and attack the victim's immune system. The plague has a mutated bacteria compared to the Smallpox

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The historical recorded of symptoms and events leading up to the plague help to understand the plague today and how to better prevent another

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The Columbian Exchange was the movement of people, animals, goods, plants, diseases, and microorganism that occurred in the sixteenth century. The effects of The Columbian Exchange on early American society were extensive. One of the most devastating effects was the spreading of disease that killed around ninety percent of the Native American population. When Europeans came to the New World they brought with them diseases such as, “smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera”(document one). The native’s immune systems were not prepared to fight theses diseases and this lead to a catastrophic amount of fatalities.

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Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana: the great smallpox epidemic of 1775-82, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001). Pages, ix, 384, index, bibliography. Review by Samantha Pilcher. Elizabeth A. Fenn is the author of Pox Americana.

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In the book, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth Fenn (2001), depicts the casualty of one of the deadliest virus in mankind -- the smallpox during the American War of Independence and how it shaped the course of the war and the lives of everyone in the North America. Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by an Orthopoxvirus known as variola major virus. Spread by direct transmission, the disease produces high fever, headache, excruciating back pain, anxiety, general malaise, blindness at times, and the most distinctive of all, blistering rashes that can leave deep-pitted scars. Its spread could be attributed through human civilizations, voyaging, expansion of trade routes. The European colonizers brought

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Lastly the third, the septicemic variation; this attacked the blood system. Today scientist understand that the disease is spread by a bacillus called the Yersinia Pestis. 4.

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In the spring of 1348, the most devastating pandemic in European history infected it’s first victim along the coast of Italy. The Bubonic Plague had established a foothold and would continue to rip its way through Europe for the rest of the 14th century. The Bubonic Plague is a vector borne illness that is transmitted by a flea that is typically found on rats. The plague originated in Eastern Asia, but found its way to Europe along trade routes carried by rats on Genoese ships. The Bubonic Plague was extremely devastating to European society in several ways including: major population destruction, harsh invalid accusations, and compounding medical issues.

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The Bubonic Plague, is a disease that is caused by Yersinia pestis. This bacteria is found in rodents, such as rats. Fleas feed on these rats, and it can be passed to humans through flea bites. The Bubonic Plague was first seen in China, yet it came to Europe in the year 1347 with the use of Genoise Ships. These ships would bring the contaminated rats across the Black Sea.

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There are three common forms of the plague: The Bubonic,spread by direct flea bites, the Septimic, in which the bacteria directly enter the bloodstream, and the Pneumonic, in which the virus is inhaled into the lungs. The three branches of the disease gave it the versatility to spread faster and become even more

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The bubonic plague consisted of large buboes, swollen lymph nodes, which developed soon after the person was bitten by an infected flea. Doctors realized that they could help their patients by bursting the buboes on their bodies later on, and they saved many people by doing this. The septicemic plague attacked the bloodstream, and it was even more dangerous than the bubonic plague. The toes, fingers, and nose could blacken due to the tissue dying, and the person would commonly go into shock. The pneumonic plague was the least seen, but it was the most dangerous.

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The Bubonic Plague, a Turning Point in World History During the 14th century CE, in Medieval Europe, the Bubonic Plague started in Mongolia (China) spreading west through trade routes bringing illness and death. The Bubonic Plague is an epidemic disease that resulted in big swellings in the armpits and couldn’t be cured with medicine. Based on an evaluation of the Bubonic plague, it can be considered a turning point in world history because it was a major factor in the decline of population, economy, and affected religion.

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One of the biggest summer nuisance would be the mosquito, but more specifically the Ades aegypti mosquito. The Aedes aegypti is the vector for yellow fever and the cause of the numerous deaths. In her book The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic the Shaped Our History, Molly Caldwell Crosby presents the idea that the mosquito is not just the only reason an epidemic occurred in the 18th century. This story accounts for the disease that broke out across the world and nearly destroyed almost all of North America’s population, which some believe could have been avoided by simple quarantine analysis and sanitary methods.

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The new world was much more impacted than the old world from diseases exchanged. The Native Americans were more impacted because they had no previous contact with Old World diseases, and were immunologically defenseless. “Before Europeans initiated the Columbian Exchange of germs and viruses, the peoples of the Americas suffered no smallpox, no measles, no chickenpox, no influenza, no typhus or parathyroid fever, no diphtheria, no cholera, no bubonic plague, no scarlet fever, no whooping cough, and no malaria5”. The first recorded smallpox epidemic in the new world was in 1518 in the Greater Antilles and swept through Mexico and Central America. It caused “in all likelihood the most severe loss of aboriginal population that ever occurred6.”

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The Black Death was a disease which spread across Europe in the fourteen century, killing a great part of its population, and making the illness the worst natural disaster on the European continent. The Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, was caused by a bacteria which spread through infected fleas living on rats (Mulch). After the rat died from the bacteria, the fleas would turn to people infecting them instead since the rats lived in the villages and towns especially on the ships (Fiero). After three days of incubation the illness spread to the lymph nodes, swelling into blisters commonly in the armpit, neck, and groin area (Mulch). People infected died five days after incubation of the illness.

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In deeper analysis, Malaria, Yellow Fever, and Smallpox have occurred for over 4,000 years and is known for greatly impacting humans and their history during the Antebellum era. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted in the beginning of the article, “Malaria became widely recognized in Greece by the 4th century BCE, and it was responsible for the decline of many of the city-state populations”. Since our medical resources weren’t available to individuals during the Antebellum era, they were able to infer when a person contracted malaria by analyzing their blood. They could also tell when individuals caught this said disease because they would show symptoms of fevers every third day, and the releasing of merozoites in our bloodstreams. Towards the end of the Yellow Fever epidemic, over 5000 individuals were dead.

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Debate essay Have you ever thought the United States needed gun control? Well I have, I have done some research on the internet and I have found a lot of things on gun control. I have found out that a ton of people have big concerns about people with guns. In this paragraph I will be talking to you about the topic gun control and why we should have the law. This topic is controversial because there are some people that use guns to protect himself from dangerous people and there are other people that just want to kill the police and kids and adults just for the fun of shooting.

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