Lecture 5: Smallpox and Influenza Flashcards
What was the first recorded plague? Was it?
- the plague of athens
- ca. 430 BC
What were the symptoms of the plague of athens?
fever, painful skin rash, great thirst
Was there a known treatment for the plague of athens?
no
What resulted from the plague of athens?
athens lost the war
What is the plague of athens suspected to be?
smallpox
Briefly summarize the fall of the aztec empire. Why did it fall?
- Hernando Cortez (Spain), with few than 600 men, conquered the Aztec empire, with a population of several million
- Smallpox broke out among the aztecs 4 months into the battle.
- population lacked inherited or acquired resistances
What is the estimate of how much of the aztec population died from smallpox?
1/4 to 1/3
What does William McNeil argue?
that the reason why the Aztec Empire fell to a few hundred had much more to do with the outbreak of smallpox than other factors.
When and where was the first reported outbreak of smallpox in North America?
In Missouri in 1781
How did smallpox spread in North America?
through the trade routes –> water lines
How many local indigenous treatments attempted to control the spread of smallpox and find a remedy? What is an example of a treatment among the Blackfoot?
- 38+
- eating small bits of the blankets
Smallpox was a ‘___soil’ epidemic.
virgin
Does small pox remain infection outside the body?
yes
Smallpox travels on___carriers.
symptomatic
What was the outbreak of smallpox among plains cree in Canada mitigated by?
vaccines
What did Edward Jenner observe?
That milking maids sometimes developed symptoms that looked similar to smallpox, but which did not progress to smallpox. It seemed, he surmised, that the milking maids had actually contracted some other strain of the disease, cowpox.
After discovering cowpox, what did Jenner wonder?
If humans could be infect with cowpox, and if they might acquire immunity to smallpox
What did Jenner do in his original experiment?
Inoculated an 8 year old boy with cowpox. 6 weeks later he inoculated the same boy with active fluid from smallpox. The boy did not develop smallpox andJenner believed that he had found an effective prevention strategy.
Was the smallpox vaccine helpful? (people still got sick, but they didn’t___.)
die
so it was helpful
What is inoculation?
An older technique that involved exposure to similar diseases, or dead for of the infection.
Who developed vaccination?
Edward Jenner.
What is vaccination?
Involved infecting individuals with a mild (attenuated) strain of, in this case, smallpox.
What intensified English-French divisions in Montreal in 1885?
Smallpox
A combination of what two efforts tried to control smallpox in Canada in 1885?
medical and political efforts
What did prevention methods grow from in Canada?
traditional practices
Where was the largest outbreak of smallpox in the country?
Montreal, 1885
In 1885, Montreal had the highest death rate, at___deaths per___people “owing to the violent attack of smallpox from which the city suffered in 1885, there having been no less than____from that disease”
- 54.25
- 1000
- 3193
What did some preventative methods include?
Recognizing that smallpox was inevitable but some survived and the survivors were immune.
- eating the scabs of the sick
- injecting pus from the sick under the skin of the healthy
Government elected officials split between ___and ___ over smallpox vaccine
English and French
Why did the French and English have differing views on vaccination? What were the two perspectives?
-English saying that they will vaccinate healthy children –> French: why take healthy children to get sick?
English assumption that yo make more money by getting vaccinated. Government says that if not everyone is vaccinated, then there is no point.
What does Louis Riel have to do with smallpox?
- He was not for the government
- French newspapers –> don’t trust English government –> hang our own, vaccinate our children.
What did the english refer to the french as because they resisted vaccinations?
- backwards
- catholic
- poor
- illiterate
Why did the English accept vaccination (3 reasons)?
- more scientific
- pro-government
- foreward thinking
What is the first major disease to have been wiped out by public-health measure?
smallpox
When did WHO declare smallpox eradicated?
1980
When was a particularly bad case of influenza?
1918
Influenza, 1918 Model
Total deaths___
Day___
Total deaths- 31 022 801
Day- 183
Over how many Canadians died of influenza during WWI? What percent were between he ages of 25-40?
- over 50 000
- 60%
Which groups of people were disproportionately affected by influenza? What was this a result from?
- wage labourers, farming families, Aboriginals, women.
- result of they races to medical care, isolated, and the related and compounding effects of the disease on age earners in the family
True or false: more died from influenza than battle.
true
What were women encouraged to do in 1918 during influenza? Why is this?
- perform nursing duties, often with no training, and became susceptible to infection
- many nurses and doctors overseas
Was the medical profession able to reach a consensus on how to handle to influenza crisis? Why?
no, because there were no known causes and no known remedy
Due to lack of results from the medical profession on how to handle influenza, what group of people began to take matters into their own hands?
municipalities
What did municipalities, specifically Saskatoon, do to get a handle on smallpox.
- lifted the ban on alcohol (medicinal use, grief, fear, panic)
- ban on public activities
- quarantine at university
- limited rail services
What did non-medical organizations work together to promote with influenza? What did they believe caused the flu?
- promote urban and sanitary reforms
- that lack of sanitation led to the speed of the flue
What did influenza promote changes within?
- municipalities
- the medical and nursing professions
- (believed that filthy urban spaces spread flue)
Is it known what started to curb the flu?
it is unknown
Epidemic disease affect not only individual bodies, but what else as well?
systems of governance and social conventions
___is often left acting to outbreaks.
medicine
What is the only disease to be declared eradicated?
smallpox
Are traditional or local reactions more or less affective in treating diseases as scientific solutions
are often as effective
What is critical in addressing an epidemic (besides medical intervention)?
public reception
___health methods have been proven to be moderately effective in control.
public
