PROBLEM 4 Hoxo Do We Attempt to Stop the Spread 



of Disease? 



Epidemics of former times. It was not 

 uncommon formerly for epidemics to 

 sweep over Europe and Asia. In tiie four- 

 teentii century bubonic plague, spoken 

 of as the Black Death, spread over Eu- 

 rope, Asia, and Africa, killing probably 

 as many as 60,000,000 people. In the fif- 

 teenth century came an epidemic of 

 smallpox; in the nineteenth century, 

 cholera; and in the twentieth century, 

 influenza. Even in the early days, 

 whether men believed devils, evil spirits, 

 or the stars caused disease, they feared 

 contact with the sick for they had ob- 

 served that contact brought disease. 

 They fled to escape and in fleeing they 

 spread the germs even farther. Now- 

 adays w^e know better; instead of run- 

 ning away, we make sure that those who 

 are sick from a communicable disease are 

 separated from the well. We isolate the 

 patient who has a communicable disease. 

 Community action is necessary. The 

 habit of collecting figures about things 

 that happen is a useful one. Some people 

 make a profession of collecting and 

 studying such figures, or statistics. The 

 recording of statistics about disease and 

 death was begun in various countries in 

 the first half of the last century. The sta- 

 tistics were interesting to those who ex- 

 amined them thoughtfully. Long before 

 men knew about the role of bacteria in 

 disease, they realized that overcrowding 



and filth went hand in hand with com- 

 municable disease. These conditions can- 

 not be controlled to any great extent by 

 any one individual. They can be reme- 

 died only by the members of the com- 

 munity working together. 



Ordering lepers to wear a bell or to 

 clothe themselves so that they could be 

 recognized was one of the first examples 

 of community action. A later step was 

 the establishment of quarantijie (kwar'- 

 un-teen) —the isolation, not only of the 

 sick, but of those suspected of possibly 

 being sick. In the Middle Ages, the Ital- 

 ian city of Venice kept vessels arriving 

 from the East at anchor outside the port 

 for forty days. If no case of plague de- 

 veloped, they were permitted to dock. 

 The word quarantine (meaning 40) 

 comes from this practice. 



But little progress in stopping the 

 spread of disease could be made before 

 the germ theory of disease was accepted. 

 To prevent communicable diseases from 

 spreading, we must know how the germ 

 enters the body, through what channels 

 germs leave the sick person and where 

 and how long they will live in various 

 environments outside the body. It is 

 necessary to have this kind of informa- 

 tion if a communit\ is to prevent the 

 spread of disease through control of the 

 environment. Such control of the en- 

 vironment by health ofiicers or boards 



