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Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview

Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview. INTRODUCTION EUROPE The English Sweats Typhus Syphilis AMERICAS Yellow Fever Malaria. The English Sweats. Epidemics in 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528, 1551 and 1571.

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Lecture 12 : The Early Modern Period Overview

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  1. Lecture 12 : The Early Modern PeriodOverview INTRODUCTION EUROPE The English Sweats Typhus Syphilis AMERICAS Yellow Fever Malaria

  2. The English Sweats • Epidemics in 1485, 1506, 1517, 1528, 1551 and 1571. • Death in 3 to 18 hours. Survivors recovered completely, but were susceptible to further attacks. • Epidemics occurred late spring or summer. • Posibly a form of relapsing fever (cause by a spirochete Borrelia transmitted by ticks or louse). • Appeared in a milder form in France in 18th and 19th centuries (Picardy sweats). • May have been introduced to England by French mercenaries brought in by Henry VII.

  3. Flea Tick Bed Bugs Mite Body Louse Pubic Louse (Crab) Head Louse (Nit)

  4. Typhus • Caused by Rickettsia prowazeckiiand transmitted by body lice. • First known epidemic was amongst Spanish troops beseiging Moorish Grenada in 1489 – 17,000 deaths. • Killed half of French army beseiging Naples in 1528. • Napolean’s ‘Grande Armee’was reduced from 600,000 to 30,000 by cold, starvation and typhus. • Major cause of death in Irish Potato Famine (1846-49). • Likewise World Wars I and II. • Associated with poverty, overcrowding and war.

  5. Syphilis • First outbreak was in French army beseiging Naples in 1495. • Rapidly spread throughout Europe and beyond. • Brought to Calcutta by Vasco da Gama in 1498. • Initially highly virulent, but became much less lethal within 50 years. • Possibly brought back from the Americas by Columbus. • Causal agent Treponema pallidumsimilar to the causes of pinta, yaws and bejel. Possibly brought from Africa by Arab traders.

  6. The Slave Trade • Spanish started importing African slaves to work mines only 11 years after Columbus. • Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British later imported slaves for fruit, tobacco, cotton and sugar plantations in the ‘greater Carribean’. • The Africans carried diseases such as malaria, dengue, sleeping sickness, schistosomiasis and worms. Many also died in transit from scurvy, dysentery, yellow fever, typhoid, and typhus. • Afro-American population did not increase until 19th century due to poor health.

  7. Yellow Fever • Caused by a virus transmitted by a mosquito (most frequently Aedes aegypti). • Deadly to Europeans and Amerindians, but common childhood disease in West Africa. • First epidemic in Cuba, West Indies and Yucatanin 1647-48. Spread to Spanish Florida in 1649. • Epidemics became common as far north as Nova Scotia. New York had epidemics in 1702, 1732, 1741, 1743, 1745, and 1747 and yearly from 1793 to 1805. • Philadelphia lost 10% of its 50,000 population in 1793.

  8. Lousiana Purchase • Napolean sent 60,000 troops to put down a slave rebellion in Haiti in 1802. • 23,000 died from Yellow Fever. • France abandoned its plans to consolidate its territories west of the Mississippi. • Territory sold to the US for $15m – about 3 cents per acre – more than doubling the territory of the United States and opening up the west.

  9. Malaria • Different types of malaria are caused by four species of Plasmodium which is transmitted by over 60 species of Anopheles mosquito. • Malaria is endemic in tropical areas in the Americas, and was a major problem in North America until mid 20th century. • No evidence of malaria before Columbus, but it was well established from Brazil to New England by 1750. • Quartan malaria (P. malariae) was probably introduced from Europe, and malignant tertian malaria (P. falciparum) from West Africa. • The relative immunity of blacks to malaria may have been an economic disincentive to the abolition of slavery.

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