Parasites in Past Civilizations and Their Impact Upon Health PDF Download

Author: Piers D. Mitchell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780511732386
Category : Civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"With its broad focus ranging from medicine to history, this book provides a solid historical understanding of how the nature of past cultures and civilisations affects human risk of disease. For readers fascinated by ancient societies and past civilizations as well as those intrigued by the health of our ancestors"--

Author: Piers D. Mitchell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009369687
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Parasites have been infecting humans throughout our evolution. When complex societies developed, the greater population density provided new opportunities for parasites to spread. In this interdisciplinary volume, the author brings his expertise in medicine, archaeology and history to explore the contribution of parasites in causing flourishing past civilizations to falter and decline. By using cutting edge methods, Mitchell presents the evidence for parasites that infected the peoples of key ancient civilizations across the world in order to understand their impact upon those populations. This new understanding of the archaeological and historical evidence for intestinal worms, ectoparasites, and protozoa shows how different cultures were burdened by contrasting types of diseases depending upon their geographical location, endemic insects, food preferences and cultural beliefs.

Author: Mark Nathan Cohen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300050233
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
Civilized nations popularly assume that "primitive" societies are poor, ill, and malnourished and that progress through civilization automatically implies improved health. In this provocative new book, Mark Nathan Cohen challenges this belief. Using evidence from epidemiology, anthropology, and archaeology, Cohen provides fascinating evidence about the actual effects of civilization on health, suggesting that some aspects of civilization create as many health problems as they prevent or cure. " This book] is certain to become a classic-a prominent and respected source on this subject for years into the future. . . . If you want to read something that will make you think, reflect and reconsider, Cohen's Health and the Rise of Civilization is for you."-S. Boyd Eaton, Los Angeles Times Book Review "A major accomplishment. Cohen is a broad and original thinker who states his views in direct and accessible prose. . . . This is a book that should be read by everyone interested in disease, civilization, and the human condition."-David Courtwright, Journal of the History of Medicine "Deserves to be read by anthropologists concerned with health, medical personnel responsible for communities, and any medical anthropologists whose minds are not too case-hardened. Indeed, it could provide great profit and entertainment to the general reader."-George T. Nurse, Current Anthropology "Cohen has done his homework extraordinarily well, and the coverage of the biomedical, nutritional, demographic, and ethnographic literature about foragers and low energy agriculturists is excellent. The subject of culture and health is near the core of a lot of areas of archaeology and ethnology as well as demography, development economics, and so on. The book deserves a wide readership and a central place in our professional libraries. As a scholarly summary it is without parallel."-Henry Harpending, American Ethnologist

Author:
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 0854665722
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Intestinal parasites have been one of the leading infections since prehistoric times, threatening human life and reducing its quality. In the second half of the last century, developed countries began to neglect the fight against intestinal parasites, believing the risks were almost eliminated. However, intestinal parasites have remained a persistent problem for centuries, particularly in rural areas of the rest of the world. Today, a quarter of all infectious diseases are still caused by parasitic protozoa and helminths. In the modern world, which associates intestinal parasites with underdeveloped countries, immunocompromised populations pose a significant risk. Intestinal parasites continue to contribute to the global disease burden. In different parts of the world, Helminths such as Ascaris, Enterobius, hookworms, and tapeworms, as well as protozoan parasites like Entamoeba, Cyclospora, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and Blastocystis, are a significant threat, especially to children. They place a major burden on poor populations, leading to both morbidity and mortality. A holistic approach is needed to control intestinal parasites, which remain a global threat. To establish a global and sustainable control strategy, efforts must be carried out in multiple areas simultaneously. In this book, intestinal parasites are examined from past to present, providing a comprehensive understanding of their impact and control.

Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0443295115
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Advances in Parasitology, Volume 123, the latest release in this ongoing series, includes medical studies of parasites of major influence, along with reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history. - Informs and updates on all the latest developments in the field of parasitology - Includes medical studies of parasites of major influence - Features reviews of more traditional areas, such as zoology, taxonomy, and life history which help shape current thinking and applications

Author: Rosemary Drisdelle
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520259386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The evolution and life history of parasites, their role in shaping human history, as well as future threats posed by them.

Author: Philip Norrie
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319289373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
This book shows how bubonic plague and smallpox helped end the Hittite Empire, the Bronze Age in the Near East and later the Carthaginian Empire. The book will examine all the possible infectious diseases present in ancient times and show that life was a daily struggle for survival either avoiding or fighting against these infectious disease epidemics. The book will argue that infectious disease epidemics are a critical link in the chain of causation for the demise of most civilizations in the ancient world and that ancient historians should no longer ignore them, as is currently the case.

Author: Michael B. A. Oldstone
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190056789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
In Viruses, Plagues, and History, virologist Michael Oldstone explains the scientific principles of viruses and epidemics while relating the past and present history of the major and recurring viral threats to human health, and how they have influenced human events.

Author: Kathleen McAuliffe
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544193229
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
“Engrossing . . . [An] expedition through the hidden and sometimes horrifying microbial domain.” —The Wall Street Journal Parasites can live only inside another animal and, as Kathleen McAuliffe reveals, these tiny organisms have many evolutionary motives for manipulating the behavior of their hosts. With astonishing precision, parasites can coax rats to approach cats, spiders to transform the patterns of their webs, and fish to draw the attention of birds that then swoop down to feast on them. We humans are hardly immune to their influence. Organisms we pick up from our own pets are strongly suspected of changing our personality traits and contributing to recklessness and impulsivity—even suicide. Germs that cause colds and the flu may alter our behavior even before symptoms become apparent. Parasites influence our species on the cultural level, too. Drawing on a huge body of research, McAuliffe argues that our dread of contamination is an evolved defense against parasites. The horror and revulsion we are programmed to feel when we come in contact with people who appear diseased or dirty helped pave the way for civilization, but may also be the basis for major divisions in societies that persist to this day. This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human. “If you’ve ever doubted the power of microbes to shape society and offer us a grander view of life, read on and find yourself duly impressed.” —Bookforum “Fascinating—and full of the kind of factoids you can’t wait to share.” —Scientific American “Humorous, inspiring, and macabre, this is infectious reading in the tradition of giants like Robert S. Desowitz and Jared Diamond.” —Michael A. Huffman, Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University

Author: William McNeill
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307773663
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
The history of disease is the history of humankind: an interpretation of the world as seen through the extraordinary impact—political, demographic, ecological, and psychological—of disease on cultures. "A book of the first importance, a truly revolutionary work." —The New Yorker From the conquest of Mexico by smallpox as much as by the Spanish, to the bubonic plague in China, to the typhoid epidemic in Europe, Plagues and Peoples is "a brilliantly conceptualized and challenging achievement" (Kirkus Reviews). Upon its original publication, Plagues and Peoples was an immediate critical and popular success, offering a radically new interpretation of world history. With the identification of AIDS in the early 1980s, another chapter was added to this chronicle of events, which William McNeill explores in his introduction to this edition. Thought-provoking, well-researched, and compulsively readable, Plagues and Peoples is essential reading—that rare book that is as fascinating as it is scholarly, as intriguing as it is enlightening.