Module 2 - History Flashcards
(41 cards)
Consequence of small size of societies?
before agriculture
that disease was a much less important threat to health than environmental factors like famine or danger.
The Domestication of plants and animals: changes to society and health
beginning ~10,000 BP
communities in western Asia- domesticate plants and animals (beginning of the Neolithic revolution)
- reliable food supply - communities remain in same place over time
- cities
Neolithic Revolution
the wide-scale transition of many human cultures from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement which supported an increasingly large population
With greater numbers of people living together…
social stratification, development of wealth and poverty
- increase in diseases (domesticated animals served as hosts to disease that spread to humans)
For centuries before the 1900s
What were the principal threat to human populations?
- Viral and bacterial infections
Ecological requirements:
- A reservoir for the pathogen - animal or human
- Dense human population to maintain infection
- Contact sufficient for the spread of pathogens from infected to vulnerable populations
With the decline of the Roman empire and the decreased complexity of trade and communication, Europe experienced a ?
long period of relative good health.
When did this period of relatively good health end for Europe?
This ended as trade networks to Asia were re-established in the 14th century. (BLACK DEATH)
Columbian Exchange
After 1500, the encounter between the Old World and the New World had the greatest interaction between?
between previously separate ecosystems
Columbian Exchange effect on Old World?
The Old World got new crops-maize, potatoes etc…that fuelled a population explosion in Europe and elsewhere
but intro of new crops and increase of pop’n created new vulnerabilities
Virgin Soil Epidemic
arrival of Europeans to America and other isolated regions
smallpox (and other diseases) exploded in populations with no experience with these diseases
Populations at risk of diseases brought by columbian exchange?
populations at risk have had no previous contact with these diseases, thus they were immunologically almost defenseless
Ascendancy of Smallpox
17th century - plague declined (too successful)
smallpox overtook it as most fearful pathogen
Edward Jenner
1790s - vaccination for smallpox
Rubbed pus from cowpox postule of an infected dairy maid into the scratch of a young boy-exposed to smallpox 6 wks. later –immunity conferred
Who brought Edward Jenner’s finding to the west?
Lewis and Clark (1804)
Thomas Malthus 1766-1834
- recognized danger of increase of pop’n from intro of new crops
predicted an eventual disaster as food production would eventually be unable to match demand
“limits to growth”
What contributed to Thomas Malthus being discredited?
By the 1900s improvements in agriculture contributed to him being discredited
John Snow - 1854
1854 bad outbreak of Asiatic Cholera in London
- 3 days = 127 deaths (eventually 500 deaths)
He isolated source of infection to a water pump on Broad Street
- pioneering work in epidemiology
from 1500 on the Columbian Exchange brought fundamental change to?
The people and environment around the world (Crosby)
Columbian Exchange
who profitted?
who declined?
for the most part the Old World profited while New World societies declined, especially with regard to pathogens (e.g., smallpox)
Florence Nightingale
nurse in 1850s Crimean War
emphasized sanitation
washing reduced infection rates drastically
deaths 60% -> 4%
1860’s Dr Robert Lister
developed concept of antiseptic surgery
McKeown thesis (1800s):
that nutrition and sanitation are more important than medicine
1880s - the Germ Theory of Disease
defn and 2 people
Based on the principle that specific diseases were caused by specific organisms
Louis Pasteur
Robert Koch
