Parasites in Past Civilizations and Their Impact upon Health

Parasites in Past Civilizations and Their Impact upon Health PDF

Author: Piers D. Mitchell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2023-04-06

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 1009369687

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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.

Health and the Rise of Civilization

Health and the Rise of Civilization PDF

Author: Mark Nathan Cohen

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1989-01-01

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780300050233

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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

Parasites

Parasites PDF

Author: Rosemary Drisdelle

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0520259386

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

Infectious Diseases along the Silk Roads

Infectious Diseases along the Silk Roads PDF

Author: Heinz Mehlhorn

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2023-09-11

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783031352744

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The heart of this volume is exploring the links between human disease spread and the broad Silk Road trading networks which connect Eurasian civilizations past and today. Compiled by an international team of subject authors, this book includes two themed parts. Readers are first introduced into history naming, former, present and future routes of the Silk Road, representing the longest trade way and culture diffuser in the world. The second part contains the main book focus and addresses medical research as well as individual diseases and parasite groups from the region in detail. By drawing an arc between the past and present disease situation, the authors trace how parasites and vectors spread around the globe, and what impact infectious diseases had and will have upon human civilizations. Through its interdisciplinary character this book will be enjoyed by interested readers from the fields of parasitology and palaeoparasitology, medical sciences and public health, as well as cultural history.

Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past Populations

Sanitation, Latrines and Intestinal Parasites in Past Populations PDF

Author: Piers D. Mitchell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-03

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1317059530

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Sanitation and intestinal health is something we often take for granted today. However, people living in many regions of the developing world still suffer with debilitating diseases due to the lack of sanitation. Despite its clear impact upon health in modern times, sanitation in past populations is a topic that has received surprisingly little attention. This book brings together key experts from around the world to explore fascinating aspects of life in the past relevant to sanitation, and how that affected our ancestors. By its end readers will realize that toilets were in use in ancient Mesopotamia even before the invention of writing, and that flushing toilets with anatomic seats were a technology of ancient Greece at the time of the minotaur myth. They will see how sanitation compared in ancient Rome and medieval London, and will take a virtual walk around the sanitation of York at the time of the Vikings. Readers will also understand which intestinal parasites infected humans in different regions of the world over different time periods, what these parasites tell us about early human evolution, later population migrations, past diet, lifestyle, and the effects of sanitation technology. There is good evidence that over the millennia people in the past realized that sanitation mattered. They invented toilets, cleaner water supplies, drains, waste disposal and sanitation legislation. While past views on sanitation were very different to those of today, it is clear than many past societies took sanitation much more seriously than was previously thought.

The Parasites of Man, and the Diseases Which Proceed From Them. A Text-book for Students and Practitioners

The Parasites of Man, and the Diseases Which Proceed From Them. A Text-book for Students and Practitioners PDF

Author: Rudolf Leuckart

Publisher: Legare Street Press

Published: 2023-07-18

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781019916858

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This classic text on parasitic diseases and their impact on human health is an essential resource for medical students and professionals. The authors provide detailed descriptions of common parasites, their life cycles, and the illnesses they cause, along with information on prevention and treatment. Originally published in German in 1863, this English translation from 1886 remains a seminal work in the field of medical parasitology. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Advances in Parasitology

Advances in Parasitology PDF

Author:

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2024-03-06

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 0443295115

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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

Plagues and Peoples

Plagues and Peoples PDF

Author: William McNeill

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2010-10-27

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0307773663

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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.

Parasites

Parasites PDF

Author: Scott Lyell Gardner

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-11-15

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 0691206872

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An exciting look at the essential roles that parasites play in Earth’s ecosystems This book looks at the weird and wonderful world of parasites, the most abundant form of life on Earth. Parasites come in all forms and sizes and inhabit every free-living organism. Parasitism is now, and always has been, a way to survive under changing environmental conditions. From arctic oceans to tropical forests, Scott Gardner, Judy Diamond, and Gabor Racz investigate how parasites survive and evolve, and how they influence and provide stability to ecosystems. Taking readers to the open ranges of Mongolia, the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska, the Andes of Bolivia, and more, the authors examine the impact parasites have on humans and other animals. Using examples of parasites from throughout the tree of life, the authors describe parasite-host relationships as diverse as those between trematodes and snails and tapeworms and whales. They even consider the strange effects of thorny-headed worms on their hosts. Parasites offer clues to the evolutionary history of particular regions, and they can provide insights into the history of species interactions. Through parasites, biologists can weave together a global knowledge of the past to predict the challenges that we will face in the future. Revealing that parasites are so much more than creepy-crawlies, this book gives up-to-date context for these critical members of the biological diversity of our planet.

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