HLTB21H3 Chapter 3: Plagues and People; Chapter 3
Document Summary
Plagues came to be a record only in our recent past, in a time when we became farmers (less plagues in the hunter-gatherers time, no domestication) Vectors of malaria and yellow fever may have been present at the hunter-gatherer stage. The diseases of antiquity (500 bc t o700 ad) where characterized by parasites with long-lived transmission stages (ex. eggs) and also person-to-person contact. The were characterized by parasites with long-lived transmission stage; as well those that involved person to person contact. The pharaoh"s plague (blood fluke disease): the disease that causes blood to appear in the urine (hematuria) In 1910 marc armand ruffer examined egyptian mummies and found the calcified eggs of the blood fluke in the kidneys of several. Fossil snails capable of transmitting blood fluke disease have been found in the well water of jericho. Snail fever has existed in tropical and sub tropical parts of the world especially egypt.