1. How Diseases Affect Society
Unit C: Section 10.1
Plague burial ground for the Jewish Community of Prague, 1680

2. Early Explorers
European explorers brought many new things to the New World…horses, iron pots, rifles, new seeds.
Perhaps what affected Aboriginal groups the most were the diseases they brought, including smallpox, tuberculosis, flu.
Aboriginal people were not able to fight the diseases because they had never before been exposed.
As a result, millions died.

3. Effect on Aboriginal Groups
Millions of aboriginals died as a result of diseases brought by European Explorers.
As a group, brainstorm what effect this would have had on the Aboriginals and their life….
Fewer hunters = more people starved
Fewer elders = less passing on of customs and traditions
Fewer people = less able to resist European power
Fewer women = birth rate slowed

4. Biological Warfare
Started as early as the 1700’s, when a British general used disease as a weapon against Aboriginal groups.
He distributed blankets from people who had died of smallpox.
Aboriginals who used the blankets quickly contracted the disease and died, as did many others

5. PANDEMICS
Disease that affects a large proportion of the population over a large geographic area.
Are very difficult to control
Example over time:
Bubonic Plague ( ) – over 100 million deaths
Spanish Flu Plague (Influenza) (1918) – 21 million deaths
AIDS Pandemic (1980s) – more than 25 million

6. EPIDEMICS
Disease that many people in a local area suffer from at the same time.
Also very difficult to control
Example over time:
Tuberculosis Epidemic (1500s to 1700s) – over a billion in the last 2000 years
Malaria – kills 2.7 million a year (2,800 children a day)
Flu - kills 36,000 a year in the U.S.

7. Bubonic Plague (1346-1350) SOCIAL CONDITIONS: Overcrowded cities
Limited clean water
No waste disposal facilities
Poor sanitation and hygiene
High population of rats that
carried the disease
IMPACT
30 – 50 % of the world population died
Over 100 million deaths worldwide
People began being quarantined (sealed off until they got better)
Crime rate dropped
Death of the skin, which produces a black discoloration-- hence the term Black Death.

8. Doctors who treated people with the plague dresses like below to try to avoid getting the disease.
Spices inside the beak of this outfit were intended to purify the air and the wand was used to test the patient’s pulse.
During the 1500s doctors didn’t know that it was bacteria that spread the plague.
What are some ways you think a doctor may have been infected with the plague?

10. Tuberculosis Epidemic (1500s to 1700s)
SOCIAL CONDITIONS:
Aboriginal people has no previous exposure
Overcrowding in boarding schools
Poor air circulation
Lack of sanitation
Poor diets
IMPACT
In western Canada, 25% of Aboriginal and Inuit children in residential schools died of TB.
Many children were put up for adoption instead of returned to their families
Aboriginal adults lost contact with their communities
IS IT GONE?

11. Spanish Flu Pandemic (1918)
SOCIAL CONDITIONS:
Soldiers travelling during WWI spread flu to people who had not been previously exposed
Poor sanitation
Poor diets
Little or no access to medical care (doctors to busy treating injured soldiers)
IMPACT
In Canada, more people died from the Spanish Flu than from the war (50 000)
21 million deaths worldwide
Loss of income for public services because people were fearful of catching the flu
Crime rate dropped

12. The Spanish flu arrived in Alberta in October 1918, with 15 ill soldiers who were returning from WW1.
More than 3000 Albertans died as a result
In New York City 1918 you could have been fined $500 for spitting, sneezing or coughing in public - trying to reduce spread of the Spanish flu

14. AIDS Pandemic (1980s to now)
SOCIAL CONDITIONS:
Sexual contact
Sharing needles (drugs, tattoos)
Infants born from infected mothers
Transfusions of infected blood
IMPACT
4th leading cause of death worldwide
High costs for treatment; no cure
Fear and confusion about AIDS results in negative treatment of infected individuals

16. Did you see any similarities in the social conditions during each epidemic and pandemic?
SANITATION
Slowly, people began to understand the connection between sanitation and disease and ordered streets to be cleaned and quarantined sick people in special facilities.
As people began to see the results of these kinds of measures, they became more interested in working together to develop healthy communities. This is referred to as Public Health.
In the next chapter we will see how Public Health has improved and how that has improved human health

17. Now it’s your turn…
Read pg and complete Q’s #1-3