History - Midterm 2

Question 1

2 Examples of Historical accounts of Epidemics

Answer 1

Plague of Athens -431--430described by
Thucydides in History of the Peloponnesian
War
•Medieval Bubonic Plague described by
Boccacio in The Decameron

Question 2

Plague of Athens (431-430 BCE)

Answer 2

Origin of the disease in Ethiopia and then spread
into Egypt and Libya, then in Persia
In Athens, occurred first in Piraeus, where
spartans had poisoned wells

Question 3

Symptoms of plague of Athenes

Answer 3

1-Physicians did not know how to treat disease
2- Refuse to speculate on the cause of disease
3-Description of the symptoms so others can recognize it
a) heat, headache, redness + inflammation of eyes,
bloody throat and tongue, unnatural breath
b) sneezing and hoarseness, chest pain, hard cough
c) vomiting, violent spasms
d) reddish, livid body with pustules and ulcera
e) internal burning feeling, unquenchable thirst
f) death after 7 or 8 days in most cases
g) Violent bowel ulcerations, severe diarrhoea, left mark
on extremities, loss of memory

Question 4

Natural Immunity

Answer 4

Thucydides mentioned that survivors of disease never got
it twice
hey have something that is different from others
If you survive you wont get it a second time

Question 5

Population Density

Answer 5

Thucydides makes connection between population density

and transmission of disease.

Question 6

Zoonosis

Answer 6

Birds and animals either abstained of touching human

bodies or died of tasting corpses.

Question 7

Impact of Plague

Answer 7

Pericles died of Plague
-End of Golden age of Athenian political pre-eminence
-Impact on beliefs
Physicians unable to treat people (lack of
knowledge)
Priest and religion did not provide any
salvation

Question 8

Lucretius De Rerum Natura Book 6

Nature of disease

Answer 8

Lucretius describe the
nature of diseases
He first mentions that diseases are transported
through clouds of pestilence. He describes the
importance of air and climate in diseases. Give the
example of disease such as elephantiasis as an
example of a disease specific to Egypt.

Question 9

Lucretius De Rerum Natura Book 6 Epidemic example

Answer 9

Then he uses the plague of Athens as an example of
epidemic diseases and draw heavily on the
description by Thucydides.

Question 10

Lucretius De Rerum Natura Book 6

Answer 10

Symptoms of the disease are the same than those
described by Thucydides.
- Social consequences of epidemics are described
prominently toward the end.
- Commager (1957) has suggested that Lucretius uses the
plague of Athens to illustrate the moral sickness of
humans in addition to the physical disaster it brought
to Athens and the end of the Athenian system.

Question 11

Svante paabo

Answer 11

Svante paabo

- Swedish scienctis 
- Did neanderthal genome 
- Uses dif dna socurces from those dif fossilised bones

Question 12

PCR Primers Tested on DNA from

Tooth

Answer 12

Y. pestis smallest one at 148 bp

Used with is61 to identify Bacteria

Nar G - Nitrate Reductase converts No3 to No2 when theres no. oxygen

Problem with this - not related to pathogenicity to the bacteria
- Rge selection of the marker makes it a fairly week study

Question 13

PCR Products of narG of

Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi

Answer 13

360 bp

Question 14

Plague of Athens (431-430 BCE)

what was molecular diagnosis

Answer 14

typhoid fever. Papagrigorakis et al. 2006)

Fever, rash and diarrhea reported by Thucydides are
consistent with typhoid fever.
Acuteness of onset described by Thucydides is
inconsistent.
Inconsistency maybe explained by evolution of S.
enterica serovar Typhi.
Because they fornd rng biomarker

Question 15

Have Papagrikorakis et al.

provided strong evidence?

Answer 15

Would suggest its didn’t provide string evidence since rg is not associated with virulence
Contamination

Rg is not best biomarker for disease

Question 16

Bubonic Plague (AD 1348)

Answer 16

Giovanni Boccacio lived in florence and wrote the
Decameron in 1350.
Introduction described the Great Plague of 1348

Question 17

Bubonic Plague Key symptom of disease

Answer 17

bubo (gavoccioli) of
variable sizes spreading over body
)

Bubbos- bubonic plage
- Transmitted by flea bite from rodents
- If density increases then you may have phnenmic plauge which is human to human transmition
Bubos turn black and death within 2 or 3 days

Question 18

Bubonic Plague (AD 1348) 
3 sequences / mutation

Answer 18

Modern Y. pestis pla, 
Black Death man 
Black Death woman 
Mutation in position 178 of pla from a serine
(S) to a phenylalanine (F)

Question 19

napA613 mutation

Answer 19

napA613 mutation: loss of nitrate reduction

Question 20

Biomarkers

Answer 20

These examples of ‘paleoepidemiology’
indicate the importance of biomarkers.
• It is important that the gene or molecule
used in the study of a disease be
closely linked to the disease itself and
provide unambiguous evidence of the
link between the biomarker and the
disease.