Knowledge Of Plague Essay

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The Knowledge of Plague dates back to Columbus's discovery of America, where Europeans spread deadly diseases such as Smallpox, measles, and influenza to Native Americans. Throughout history countless epidemics took the lives of mankind. Humanity tackled on these diseases with the development of vaccinations. Vaccines have vastly been improved through the growth of human civilization. Life before vaccines was devastating and took extreme measures. A form of treatment for smallpox is known as inoculation or variolation, where dried smallpox scabs were blown into the nostrils of an individual who then would get a mild form of the disease. Once that individual recovered they would be immune to smallpox. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) variolation was not risk free, not only could a patient die from the procedure but the mild form of the disease could spread causing an epidemic. …show more content…

The Iron lung was invented to help polio patients breath due to the disease paralyzing muscle groups leaving patients unable to breath on their own according to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Children who encountered polio would spend weeks or months inside the iron lung, polio was one of the most feared diseases. The Center for disease control and prevention states polio crippled an average of more than 35,000 people in the united states each year. As polio vaccines began to arise the iron lung was left in the past in comparison with variolation. Dr. Jonas Salk created the Salk vaccine using a killed version of the virus in 1955. The vaccine was proven to be effective based on the Salk Institute for biological studies two years before the vaccine was available the number of polio cases in the U.S. was 45,000 by 1962 the number dropped to

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