The Plague of Athens

In the last unit for the disease course, it was titled World. For the last Action Project for the Disease course, we had to research a plague. I decided to do my project on The Plague of Athens. This plague was a version of Typhoid fever that attacked Athens in late 426 BC. It killed one their of the entire population due to the overcrowding of the city and living in close quarters with the animals. For this project I did a slide show and a script of this plague.

script:

In early 426 BC, a terrible plague broke out in Athens. This was happening during the Peloponnesian war which is what many people thought was the cause of this terrible disease that killed ⅓ of Athenians. They have now discovered by looking at the teeth of the remains of a little girl named myrtis, that the disease was Typhoid fever. Scientists are still trying to figure out the cause of this awful disease and how it only affected Athens rather than Sparta. The disease passed through Ethiopia, and across the med. sea and was said to be brought on by ships from Northern Africa docking in Athens. One of the more popular beliefs that the Athenians had about why the plagues were occurring was that god Apollo, the healer and protector from evil, sent the disease after being angered by Agamemnon. Agamemnon who was the king of Mycenae, (a mythological kingdom of ancient Greece) allegedly treating Apollo’s priest offensively. They tended to not try to rid themselves of the disease because they thought that when the gods were happy again, they would remove the disease, which never happened. When nothing got better, people turned on their religion and made up new colts and the people who stayed with tradition thought that the gods would get even more angry with them and continue to make the plague worse. A few of the more prominent symptoms from this plague included pus secreting rashes, high fever, and diarrhea. Plague victims often died after a week from internal burning. If they survived, the sickness moved to their stomach, giving them severe diarrhea; at this point, weakness often killed them. Many who survived past the weakness and diarrhea lost their fingers, toes, genitals, and sometimes even eyes. Total loss of memory also was a common symptom of survivors. It was not uncommon for Athenians to commit suicide after finding out they had contracted the plague. This is because the number of survivors was so low and death from the plague was excruciatingly painful. The one thing they did do though was blockade themselves by burning countryside surrounding Athens. While this strategy seemed to work initially, a few centuries later Rome contracted what is believed to be the same plague that struck Athens. The mortality rate when the first outbreak happened was 33% and in the second outbreak, it went down to 26%. This disease also affected dogs and birds which was a problem because they lived in very close quarters with all of their animals. This disease then moved on to other places but Athens was the most affected area.






www.bit.ly/1ChHbwp

This link will lead to a graph that was simulated to show how Athens might have looked based on an epidemic and life expectancy in years. Since Athens is not on Gapminder, the way the countries move should show how they might look.

Schizophrenia

The disorder that I chose for my project in the Disease course was Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior. No one is 100% what causes this disorder but they think that it is a combination of genetics and environment contributes to development of the disorder. In my lesson plan, I incorporated 2 different aspects of schizophrenia: delusions, and decision making. Schizophrenia is hopeless; people who have it never recover.Hallucinations (seeing, hearing or experiencing things that others do not) and paranoia are the only symptoms of schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia are dangerous. While there is no cure for schizophrenia, there are effective treatments. Medications, recovery-oriented psychosocial treatments and rehabilitation practices are increasingly helping people with schizophrenia to lead productive, successful and independent lives. Schizophrenia is brain-based disease, so in addition to hallucinations, it affects multiple brain functions, such as the ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. People with schizophrenia also have delusions, which are firmly held false beliefs, that may cause them to think people are following them or looking at them.Studies indicate that people receiving treatment for schizophrenia are no more dangerous than the rest of the population. More typically, individuals with schizophrenia are withdrawn and prefer to be left alone. People with schizophrenia are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. However, people with schizophrenia and alcohol and other drug abuse, or those who do not participate in treatment, are at increased risk for committing violent acts. These are just some of many truths and myths of schizophrenia.

Bacterial Meningitis

In the Disease course, we focused on different illnesses and diseases that are in our world today. We were told to interview a family member or friend that had been diagnosed with a disease. If you see any article about meningitis, it says that 20% of people have this disease in their throat. This disease is contagious and my uncle Brad got this disease from the food at a restaurant. Some risk factors are having a compromised immune system, skipping vaccinations, and living/going to a community setting (i.e restaurants, colleges, etc). Some key terms are knowing the difference between bacterial and viral meningitis. Bacterial meningitis is much worse than viral. Another key word is photophobia. That is having an increased sensitivity to light which was one of the main symptoms Brad had.

MF. Bacterial Meningitis. (2015)

My uncle Brad is a 48 year-old man who was diagnosed with Bacterial Meningitis in 2008. He went out to dinner for him and his wife’s anniversary to a persian food restaurant. After dinner he started to feel light headed so he went to lay down at home. The next day, “ I was feeling tired and weak and I had a headache that wouldn't go away. It just got worse and worse everyday. I didn’t want to move, my body was starting to ache, I didn't want any light it was hurting my eyes. Eventually I got a fever and it was going up very high and while it went up, my blood pressure dropped”. After being in a month long coma, the blood in his veins was not flowing to his fingers and toes and so once he finally woke up, “ they became dead. Dead hands and dead feet. Like a mummy.. and thats it, eventually they had to remove the bad parts because they were dead and go from there.”

He now lives without his hand, his arm, his foot, and his leg. This disease caused his meninges, which is the collective name for the three membranes that envelop the brain and spinal cord. What happened to him was his immune system weakened, and the bacteria got into his bloodstream so he had an infection running through his blood. After being affected by this disease, his whole life changed. Having to adjust to not having his important body parts was extremely difficult. Brad explains that, “it changed the way I eat, brush my teeth, the way I shower, the way I get from one place to the next. I had to adapt to a completely different way of life. I have to rely on other people for the things I used to be able to do on my own. The biggest part is understanding that I have to rely on other people. The biggest thing I learned was that I can't get angry about having to get help from others and things taking too much time. I used to do everything: run around, play with my kids, go to my job.” Brad was a lawyer and still currently is but can not go to court and move around as much as he used to. He has a driver that comes and gets his every morning since he can’t drive anymore.

Some of the symptoms he had were that he was feelings tired, never wanted any light (Photophobia) , and that he was feeling very weak. When he went to the hospital, they gave him medicine which caused his blood pressure to go down a lot and that was why his blood was not going to his fingers and toes. He “ just wanted to, I just thought about what the next step was going to be. There are a lot of steps after getting a disease like this. Lots of steps to recovery. I just went through all the rehab.” He was in the hospital for a very long time and when asked what went through his mind when he was first diagnosed, he explained that “The biggest concern was the fear that I was not going to be able to take care of my wife and kids anymore, but the good thing was that the I was not working and I was spending more time with my family.”  After dealing with the aftermath of having this disease, Brad still does all he can to make him and his family happy.