7th Grade Research 2014

The city was ringing in the year 1900 and things looked bright. San Francisco was both a local hub of industry and a port to ships coming in from the far east. Each of those ships had to pass a health inspection before they docked, of course, but both the passengers and the local businesses pressured the health inspectors to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. They did this even after cases of plague, and mini-epidemics, broke out in China, and then in Hawaii. It was not a surprise to health officials when the first case of plague was reported in Chinatown, but they were surprised by the opposition they faced in even saying the word "plague." Over the next few years, state and local organizations worked against federal health officials, fearing that any reports of plague would damage trade and tourism. When the 1906 earthquake hit, and the rats took over the rubble of the city, the deaths came so fast and thick that there was no denying it anymore. Still, it took years of work before the plague was quelled. By that time, it had started showing up in local squirrels.

Bubonic plague is not a virus, but a bacterial infection. Yersinia pestis lives in fleas, which leave traces of it in the area that they bite. It works its way into the body and multiplies, traveling through the lymphatic system. The swellings that appear at the groin and under the armpits are the painfully swollen lymph nodes. Bubonic plague kills within four days, at which point the fleas desert the body and go to the next victim, taking their bacteria with them. An infected flea doesn't necessarily mean an infected host. Different fleas have different eating techniques, different hosts scratch (driving the bacteria into the wound) or don't scratch, and not all hosts act as ideal carriers for the bacteria. But plague in the wildlife won't stay in the wildlife for long.

Cholera is most frequently transmitted by water sources contaminated with the causative bacterium Vibrio cholerae, although contaminated foods, especially raw shellfish, may also transmit the cholera-causing bacteria.

The main treatment for cholera is fluid and electrolyte replacement, both oral and IV. Antibiotics usually are used in severe infections in which dehydration has occurred.

Cholera can be prevented with appropriate measures such as safe drinking water and noncontaminated foods; some protection can be obtained from oral vaccines while avoiding areas where cholera commonly occurs or has had a recent outbreak.

Vinegar and water treatment If a person gets the disease, they must be put to bed. They should be washed with vinegar and rose water

Lancing the buboes The swellings associated with the Black Death should be cut open to allow the disease to leave the body. A mixture of tree resin, roots of white lilies and dried human excrement should be applied to the places where the body has been cut open.

Bleeding The disease must be in the blood. The veins leading to the heart should be cut open. This will allow the disease to leave the body. An ointment made of clay and violets should be applied to the place where the cuts have been made.

three waves, the Spanish flu spread quickly, killing an estimated 50 million to 100 million people around the world. Dates: March 1918 to spring 1919

This new, deadlier flu acted very strangely; it seemed to target the young and healthy, being particularly deadly to 20 to 35 year olds. This deadly flu spread quickly around the world, infecting hundreds of millions of people and killing upwards of 5 percent of the world's population.

World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza epidemi

c that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One

it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.

The Black Death – The name given to the plague that ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1351. It is said to be the greatest catastrophe experienced by the western world up to that time.

The Black Death came in three forms: The bubonic. The pneumonic. The septicemic.

This particular plague of Black Death started in Italy

Smallpox infection was eliminated from the world in 1977.

Routine vaccination against smallpox ended in 1972. The level of immunity, if any, among persons who were vaccinated before 1972 is uncertain; therefore, these persons are assumed to be susceptible.

In people exposed to smallpox, the vaccine can lessen the severity of or even prevent illness if given within 4 days after exposure. Vaccine against smallpox contains another live virus called vaccinia. The vaccine does not contain smallpox virus.

The symptoms and signs of cholera are a watery diarrhea that often contains flecks of whitish material (mucus and some epithelial cells) that are about the size of pieces of rice. The diarrhea is termed "rice-water stool" (See figure 1) and smells "fishy." The volume of diarrhea can be enormous; high levels of diarrheal fluid such as 250 cc per kg or about 10 to 18 liters over 24 hours for a 70 kg adult can occur. People may go on to develop one or more of the following symptoms and signs: Vomiting Rapid heart rate Loss of skin elasticity (washer woman hands sign; see figure 2) Dry mucous membranes Low blood pressure Thirst Muscle cramps Restlessness or irritability (especially in children)

Those infected require immediate hydration to prevent these symptoms from continuing because these signs and symptoms indicate that the person is becoming or is dehydrated and may go on to develop severe cholera.

The global flu outbreak of 1918 killed 50 million people worldwide, ranking as one of the deadliest epidemics in history.

The deadly "Spanish flu" claimed more lives than World War I, which ended the same year the pandemic struck. Now, new research is placing the flu's emergence in a forgotten episode of World War I: the shipment of Chinese laborers across Canada in sealed train cars.

Athens was the only Greek city hit by the epidemic, but Rome and several Egyptian cities were affected. Smallpox then traveled along the trade routes from Carthage.

The idea of intentionally inoculating healthy people to protect them against smallpox dates back to China in the sixth century. Chinese physicians ground dried scabs from smallpox victims along with musk and applied the mixture to the noses of healthy people.

The global campaign against smallpox ended in 1979 just two years after Maalin's case. Two additional cases of smallpox occurred in Birmingham, England, in 1978, after the virus escaped from a laboratory. There has not been a case reported in more than 25 years.

The Black Death arrived in Britain from central Asia in the autumn of 1348 and by late spring the following year it had killed six out of every 10 people in London. Such a rate of destruction would kill five million now. By extracting the DNA of the disease bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from the largest teeth in some of the skulls retrieved from the square, the scientists were able to compare the strain of bubonic plague preserved there with that which was recently responsible for killing 60 people in Madagascar. To their surprise, the 14th-century strain, the cause of the most lethal catastrophe in recorded history, was no more virulent than today's disease. The DNA codes were an almost perfect match.

Black death skeletons reveal pitiful life of 14th-century Londoners

found evidence of rickets, anaemia, bad teeth and childhood malnutrition.