An Extremely Brief Recap of Disease through History

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”  Aldous Huxley

 

That truth, though not exactly in those words, has weighed upon my mind for well over a decade, and probably two.  It’s one thing to prepare food and medicine because it’s just prudent; it becomes an entirely different matter when you recognize that history does and will repeat.  Our only choice lies in how we prepare to face it. 

In the off-grid medicine classes I’ve attended, populated predominantly by men, they all are itching to learn how to treat gunshot wounds, apply a tourniquet, and use Quikclot or execute an amputation.  These problems are in our future, I won’t deny.  But they aren’t the most common serious problems we’ll encounter.  Those folks focused on battle casualty injuries aren’t paying attention to reality.  They’re ignoring the elephant in the room.  And the reality is that more people die of disease and starvation than in combat.  That’s throughout history, as any respectable history book will testify.  Of course, it will be no different when we travel that same path.  The smart money favors those who prepare to treat disease. 

Last month, upon Becky’s recommendation, I started re-reading The Great Influenza by John Barry. 

And because Mr. Barry writes more eloquently than I, I’m going to turn the time over to him.

 

“In the Spanish-American War in 1898, six American soldiers died of disease—nearly all of them from typhoid—for every one killed in battle or who died of his wounds,” 136.

 

“In the Boer War that raged from 1899 to 1902 between Britain and the white settlers of South Africa, ten British troops died of disease for each combat-related death,” 135.

 

“…in the American Civil War … two men died from disease for every battle-related death,” 135.

 When normally mild diseases like whooping cough or mumps invade a “virgin” population (which is what the rising generations in the US will be when there are no vaccines or when people don’t trust vaccines—and I’m not saying they should—that’s a personal decision), these diseases kill in large numbers.  

 

“In the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, measles killed 40% of those who fell ill during the siege of Paris, and a measles epidemic erupted in the US Army in 1911, killing 5% of all the mean who caught the disease,” 136.

“Public health was and is where the largest numbers of lives are saved, usually by understanding the epidemiology of a disease—its patterns, where and how it emerges and spreads—and attacking it at its weak points.  This usually means prevention.  Science had first contained smallpox, then cholera, then typhoid, then plague, then yellow fever, all through large-scale public health measures, everything from filtering water to testing and killing rats to vaccination.  Public health measures lack the drama of pulling someone back from the edge of death, but they save lives by the millions,” 86.

Public health disease prevention is not glamorous.  It’s nowhere near as exciting as bringing someone back from the edge of death, like with antibiotics to eradicate an infection, or doing an appendectomy with only a book as your guide.  Or even just placing stitches.  Epidemics are what claim lives, and public health measures are what spares most of them.  Making this personal, you may not have much influence over what goes on in your city or county—the truly “public” segment of public health.  However, you possess ultimate control over your home or farmstead.  You are responsible for making sure the water is clean and knowing how to purify it, making sure any latrines are dug properly and away from water sources, making sure you’ve got food stored and the ability to grow a whole lot more.  You’re responsible for buying the industrial pharmaceuticals as well as growing and preparing the herbal medicinals.  And, you know, everything else.

Preparation imparts a huge survival advantage.

References:

John M. Barry, The Great Influenza, Penguin Books, 2004.