Traveling Disease

TRAVELING DISEASE








In the earlier centuries, goods were not the only things that traveled from place to place. Horrible diseases that would wipe out massive amounts of people also traveled quickly to strike citizens. We are so lucky in the current age to have the medical technology that we use on a daily basis. Yet, reading about how scary and fast illness took over cities back then really stuck out to me. In 430-429 B.C.E. a sea born trade between Egypt and Greece brought a unidentified disease that killed almost 25 percent of Greece's army and completely weakened the city-state. Diseases like smallpox and measles were big perpetrators in leading to the political collapse of the Roman Empire and the Han dynasty. Two very big empires not only were devastated by the deaths, but the fact that it helped take the empires down is crazy to think about. In 1346 and 1348 the plague also known as the "Black Death" wiped out half the population of Europe. The famous italian writer Boccaccio wrote, "A dead man was then of no more account than a dead goat" (324). The thought of lives being taken so easily by these diseases makes we realize how fortunate we are today. However, though tragedy struck many a family, some people did benefit from these deaths. "Tenant farmers and urban workers, now in short supply, could demand higher wages or better terms" (324). Many empires did become immune to these diseases or at least found ways to resist these illnesses. The death toll however is not something we ever should forget. These infectious diseases traveled and people died painfully. It is history like this that really shows us how advanced we are in the technology and science department and there is still more to be discovered.