Page 194 - Encyclopedia Of World History

544 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Disease in South Asia

This account indicates the horrors that awaited
many Europeans who traveled to tropical regions
of Asia. In India, there was the two-season rule: if terns changed again, manifesting diverse and unstable
one survived two tropical seasons, the chances local equilibria. These may be described as regional
were good that one would survive in the future. agrarian disease regimes; they were succeeded after about
1550 CE by an equally unstable global disease regime
The Common Distemper that destroys the most
within which we still find ourselves. The balance of this
in India, is Feavers, which the Europeans with dif-
article will explore these successive disease environments.
ficulty escape, especially if they have boild up
their Spirits by solemn Repast, and been ingag’d
Regional Agrarian
in a strong Debauch. Besides this, the Morde-
Disease Regimes
chine is another Disease of which some die,
When large numbers of persons began to cluster close
which is a violent Vomiting and Looseness, and
together in cities, the problem of waste disposal multi-
is caus’d most frequently by an Excess in Eating,
plied as never before. Exposure to new infections multi-
particularly of Fish and Flesh together. It has been
plied as well, since long-distance comings and goings by
Cur’d by Red-hot Iron clapt to the Heel of him
soldiers, merchants, seamen, and caravan personnel often
that is sick, so close that it renders him uneasie by
crossed disease boundaries and spread infections far and
its nearness, whereby it leaves a Scar behind it.
wide. Moreover, when urban populations exceeded a crit-
Source: Ovington, J. (1948). A voyage to Suratt in the year 1689 (1690). In H.
Brown (Ed.), The Sahibs (p. 37). London: William Hodge & Co. (Original work ical threshold, a new class of herd diseases began to afflict
published 1690)
humans for the first time. These diseases were at home
initially among large populations of wild flocks and
herds or dense populations of burrowing rodents and
cultivated more ground, producing more food to feed other small animals. A distinguishing characteristic of
more children. Farming villages therefore multiplied and these diseases was that when they were not fatal, they
spread from each of the regions where they had initially provoked antibodies in their animal or human hosts, so
established themselves, and human beings soon ceased survivors became immune from a second infection.This
to be rare in the balance of nature, as their foraging ances- meant that the germ could only persist when it found
tors and other top predators, such as lions and tigers, had enough newborns to feed upon for a few weeks before
always been. death or recovery created another crisis of survival for the
All the same, farmers had to labor longer and at more infection in question.
monotonous tasks than foragers did, and faced famine Just how large the total host population had to be to
whenever bad weather or an outbreak of plant disease permit a chain of infection to continue indefinitely
provoked crop failure. Seizure of stores of food by human depended on birth rates and how closely in contact
raiders was another serious risk that increased wherever potential hosts might be. To move from host to host,
grain farmers became dense enough to occupy nearly all many infections depended on airborne droplets, set adrift
suitable farmland. And when raiders became rulers by by breathing, coughing, and sneezing, and therefore
learning to take only part of the harvest as rent and taxes, needed close encounters for successful transmission. In
farmers faced another drain on their resources, and had the modern era (from about 1750), for example, measles
to work still harder to feed themselves and their new over- —a viral disease dependent on droplet propagation—
lords. Life remained short by our standards, so diseases required at least 7,000 susceptible individuals within a
of old age remained exceptional. community of something like 300,000 persons to keep
Then, beginning about 3500 BCE, rulers and their var- going. Obviously, then, infections like measles could
ious hangers-on began to create cities in a few densely only persist in urban settings and among villagers in con-
inhabited farming regions of the earth, and disease pat- tact with large urban centers.