Page 192 - Encyclopedia Of World History

542 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by
other means. • Maimonides (1135–1204)

garbage, food storage, and human feces. Fecal-oral dis- transatlantic shipping doomed approximately 90 percent
eases, particularly severe ones, thrive best in cities. For of the Native American population shortly after the ar-
example, cholera, producing diarrhea so violent that it rival of Europeans.
can lead to death by dehydration, is primarily an urban
disease caused by people drinking water in which other New and Greater Risks
people have defecated. Tuberculosis, an occasional dis- Twentieth-century antibiotics have provided cures for a
ease in a small population, is a major threat in cities. Stor- number of once-dangerous scourges such as bubonic
age can bring rats in numbers. Bubonic plague, once an plague and tuberculosis. And vaccinations that produce
occasional disease in the wild, became an urban scourge lasting immunity have protected individuals against many
when cities attracted large populations of rats. viral infections such as measles and smallpox. But
microorganisms are evolving faster than scientists are
Transport and Trade inventing new preventions or cures. Potentially lethal
Perhaps most important, large cities and widespread strains of tuberculosis and Staphylococcus bacteria that
transport permitted the spread of epidemic diseases. no antibiotic can destroy have already developed.
Although most probably originated as zoonoses from Air travel has enormously increased the risk that infec-
domestic animals, many diseases, such as smallpox and tions can spread from region to region because persons
measles, mutated forms that could survive only in dense with infections but no visible symptoms can transport
centers of human population connected by trade. They diseases between continents in a single day. Many con-
spread directly from person to person by air, water, food, temporary epidemiologists believe that we are now at
and touch and can live only in people. (They have no greater risk of new epidemics than ever before.
other reservoir organisms and no vectors, and cannot live
Mark N. Cohen
long in the air or on inanimate objects.) They promote
powerful reactions in human hosts, which typically result See also Diseases—Overview; Food
in a struggle to the death: The human host either dies or
develops immunity so powerful that the organism is
destroyed. Either way, because the organism cannot live Further Reading
long in any one host, its survival is dependent on a very Acha P. N., & Szyfres, B. (1987). Zoonoses and communicable disease
rapid movement from host to host.These parasites burn common to man and animals (2nd ed.).Washington, DC: Pan Amer-
ican Health Organization.
like forest fires and die out if they run out of fuel. A con- Cohen, M. N. (1989). Health and the rise of civilization. New Haven, CT:
tinuous supply of fuel can be provided only by trans- Yale University Press.
Cohen, M. N., & Armelagos, G. J. (1984). Paleopathology at the origins
portation to new locations, immigration, or a very large
of agriculture. New York: Academic Press.
community size such that those who are immune pro- Crosby,A.W.(1972).The Columbian exchange.Westport,CT: Greenwood.
duce new babies as fast as the disease-fire burns. Not Crosby, A. W. (1989). America’s forgotten pandemic. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
depending on any one human host, such diseases are Garrett L. (1994). The coming plague. New York: Penguin.
commonly exceptionally virulent. The geopolitics of world hunger. (2001). Boulder, CO: Reiner.
Goodman, A. H., Dufour, D. L., & Pelto, G. H. (2000). Nutritional
Diseases maintained in urban areas typically strike
anthropology. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.
only children born since the last sweep of the disease, Greenblatt, C., & Spigelman, M. (2003). Emerging pathogens. Oxford,
who are aided by parents now immune.The real danger UK: Oxford University Press.
Harrison, G.A., & Waterlow, J. C. (1990). Diet and disease. Cambridge,
occurs when such diseases arrive in populations where no UK: Cambridge University Press.
one has ever had the disease; here the death toll can be Inhorn, M. C., & Brown, P. J. (1997). The anthropology of infectious dis-
eases. Amsterdam: Gordon Breach.
exceptionally high, leaving no one to care for—feed or
Kiple, K. (Ed.). (1993). The Cambridge world history of infectious disease.
clean—anyone else. These conditions combined with Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.