The Effect of Disease on Past Societies

Justin Patera
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
November 14th, 2018
The Effects of Disease on Past Societies
Throughout the book, we see how diseases, such as the black plague, play roles in the development of our societies from around the world. Although this is not Diamonds main topic within the book it certainly plays a large role in the overall development of independent societies especially as those societies began to collide and interact with each other. A prime example of a disease’s role in history is that of the bubonic plagues. It not only killed close to 80% of those infected but also wiped out close to 20 million people across Europe, this was roughly ⅔ of their population at the time. This now only led to a time of depression and morning, but in turn, slowed down urbanization, industrialization and economic growth. (Whittaker)
In addition to this, medicine, death, and disease have seemed to fascinate, us as humans, for a very long time. With the first proof of this being from places like Ancient Egypt, India, and China Dynasty. Although we have been fascinated with medicine for an absurd amount of time, progress was somewhat slow until the 18th century. From here on out, people Charles Darwin (who changed who we see biological thinking) and Gregor Mendel (who laid out the ground basis for genetics) started becoming more frequent. As more and more people became interested in the vast variety of fields of study, we, as the human race, begin to take leaps and bounds in a matter of decades. (NIH)


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