PanAmerican University of Natural Medicine & Sciences

It’s no mystery that infectious diseases have had a profound impact on our world. They altered populations, impede progress, and yet can even be cause for new inventions. Here, we’ll take a look at epic diseases that made a major change in our world, whether for good, bad, or both at the same time.

This course is more than a historical survey and appreciation, as the student will learn intimately the signs, symptoms, nature, mortality, and spread of infectious disease. In spite of modern drugs and vaccines, the old world diseases like smallpox, tuberculosis, and malaria are still with us, only needing a lack of hygiene and malnutrition to allow them to return. Suffice it to say, a study of this viewpoint of history makes for a radical shift in knowledge and consciousness.

1.     Smallpox: Smallpox was an extremely infectious disease that wiped out entire empires. It began in northern Africa, and popped up time and time again in repeat epidemics. It killed royalty and the poor alike, not controlled until the development of the world’s first vaccine in the 1700s.
2.     Tuberculosis: While we have smallpox to thank for vaccines, we have tuberculosis for the promotion of pasteurization and the quest for antibiotics. Pasteurization was key to controlling TB, as it heats and kills TB pathogens and other contaminants in milk.
3.     Influenza (all): Whether it’s Spanish Flu, H1N1, Avian, or the seemingly innocuous flu many suffer from each year, influenza is a serious illness. Influenza in all forms has had a major impact on the number of deaths in the modern world. It also influenced the course of WWI, killing soldiers and putting a strain on military health care.
4.     Malaria: Malaria is a disease that is still prevalent in underdeveloped countries today. There is a cure for malaria now, but for more than a thousand years, there was none. Its cure, quinine, has a story that changed the world.
5.     Cholera: Cholera is a disease that’s spread through a lack of clean water and poor or nonexistent sewage systems. The existence of this disease required a change, in the form of improved sanitation, which reduced cholera’s impact.
6.     Bubonic plague: Also known as The Black Death, the bubonic plague was an incredibly devastating pandemic, which is estimated to have wiped out 75-200 million people in the 14th century, including 30%-60% of Europe’s population. It took Europe’s population 150 years to recover.
7.     Syphilis: Syphilis was present in the Americas before European contact, and it may have been carried from the Americas to Europe by the returning crewmen from Christopher Columbus's voyage to the Americas, or it may have existed in Europe previously but gone unrecognized until shortly after Columbus’s return. The first written records of an outbreak of syphilis in Europe occurred in 1494 or 1495 in Naples, Italy, during a French invasion (Italian War of 1494–98). Since it was claimed to have been spread by French troops, it was initially called the "French disease" by the people of Naples. In 1530, the pastoral name "syphilis" (the name of a character) was first used by the Italian physician and poet Girolamo Fracastoro as the title of his Latin poem in dactylic hexameter describing the ravages of the disease in Italy. It was also called the "Great Pox".

   In the 16th through 19th centuries, syphilis was one of the largest public health burdens in prevalence, symptoms, and disability, although records of its true prevalence were generally not kept because of the fearsome and sordid status of sexually transmitted diseases in those centuries. Both criminals, Al Capone and Adolf Hitler carried and died of the disease.

8.     Typhus is any of several similar diseases caused by Rickettsiae. The name comes from the Greek typhos meaning smoky or hazy,describing the state of mind of those affected with typhus. The first reliable description of the disease appears during the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada in 1489. These accounts include descriptions of fever and red spots over arms, back and chest, progressing to delirium, gangrenous sores, and the stink of rotting flesh. During the siege, the Spaniards lost 3,000 men to enemy action but an additional 17,000 died of typhus. Epidemics occurred throughout Europe from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and occurred during the English Civil War, the Thirty Years’ War and the Napoleonic Wars. In the Thirty Years’ War, an estimated 8 million Germans were wiped out by bubonic plague and typhus fever. During Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow in 1812, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by the Russians.
9.     Whooping Cough: Technically known as Pertussis, this highly infectious disease is known in some countries as the “cough of 100 days.” It’s estimated that the disease affects 48.5 million people yearly, resulting in nearly 295,000 deaths.
   
10.     Measles: In the Caribbean island Hispaniola it’s estimated that within 50 years of the arrival of Columbus, his crew and their “pathogens” (like measles, influenza and smallpox), the indigenous Taino people were virtually extinct. This pattern of large death tolls among Indigenous populations in the Americas is repeated in many locations, causing loss of traditional ways of life and cultural identity, and changing the course of their history. The accidental introduction of measles to Fiji (1875) by people travelling between Fiji and the West caused massive numbers of deaths in communities previously not exposed to the disease. In a few months 20-25% of Fijians and nearly all of the 69 chiefs died. The leadership vacuum and loss of working-age population became an opportunity for the colonial government to import labourers from other nations to work in the agricultural industries.
    
11.     Epilepsy: The neurological disease epilepsy causes seizures, which include body clenching, shouting, and occasionally, strange visions. Some experts believe that prophets including Ezekiel, Joseph Smith, Napoleon, and Joan of Arc may have suffered from epilepsy, which would explain their religious visions.
12.     Polio: Polio was a worldwide epidemic between 1840 and the 1950s, causing infections and even paralysis. Jonas Salk changed the world when he developed the inactivated polio virus vaccine in 1952, which causes nearly all who receive the vaccine to develop protective antibodies that prevent the disease.
13.     Yellow Fever: Like malaria, yellow fever is a mosquito-borne disease that has not been eradicated. This disease, which causes aching, fever, loss of appetite, vomiting, and other symptoms, can lead to multi-organ dysfunction and even death. It is believed to have influenced the Louisiana Purchase, pre-WWII development in the US, and the Panama Canal. Its impact is limited primarily to the southern US, where mosquitoes can survive the winter.
14.     Autism: Autism is a terrible disease, leaving sufferers with the inability to fully relate to others and become obsessively locked into tasks. In its own strange way, autism has benefited the world by allowing scientists such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein to produce the work of multiple people in their own lifetimes.
15.    Ebola hemorrhagic fever is named after the Ebola River, where the first recognized outbreak of the fever occurred. The viruses are characterized by long filaments, and have a shape similar to that of the Marburg virus, also in the family Filoviridae, and possessing similar disease symptoms. Ebola first emerged in 1976 in Zaire. It remained largely obscure until 1989 with the outbreak in Reston, Virginia. The virus has been confirmed to be transmitted through body fluids, however, transmission through oral exposure and through conjunctiva exposure is possible. In the early stages, Ebola may not be highly contagious. Contact with someone in early stages may not even transmit the disease. As the illness progresses, bodily fluids from diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding represent an extreme biohazard. Due to lack of proper equipment and hygienic practices, large-scale epidemics occur mostly in poor, isolated areas without modern hospitals or well-educated medical staff.
    

A rich course to say the least with stunning revelations, the student will resolve many times, "I had no idea". Written materials, extensive audio files, and supplements. 50 clock hours