Diseases and Human Evolution / Edition 1

by Ethne Barnes

Overview

Urgent interest in new diseases, such as the coronavirus, and the resurgence of older diseases like tuberculosis has fostered questions about the history of human infectious diseases. How did they evolve? Where did they originate? What natural factors have stalled the progression of diseases or made them possible? How does a microorganism become a pathogen? How have infectious diseases changed through time? What can we do to control their occurrence?
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Ethne Barnes offers answers to these questions, using information from history and medicine as well as from anthropology. She focuses on changes in the patterns of human behavior through cultural evolution and how they have affected the development of human diseases.
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Writing in a clear, lively style, Barnes offers general overviews of every variety of disease and their carriers, from insects and worms through rodent vectors to household pets and farm animals. She devotes whole chapters to major infectious diseases such as leprosy, syphilis, smallpox, and influenza. Other chapters concentrate on categories of diseases ("gut bugs," for example, including cholera, typhus, and salmonella). The final chapters cover diseases that have made headlines in recent years, among them mad cow disease, West Nile virus, and Lyme disease.
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In the tradition of Berton Roueché, Hans Zinsser, and Sherwin Nuland, Ethne Barnes answers questions you never knew you had about the germs that have threatened us throughout human history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826330666
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	02/16/2007
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Ethne Barnes is research consultant in physical anthropology/paleopathology with the Corinth excavations of the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece. She serves in the same capacity for the INAH La Playa burial excavations in Northwest Mexico.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Introduction     1
The Meaning of Disease     2
Approaches to Understanding Disease     5
Coming Together     6
Germs, Genes, Geography, and Human Behavior     7
Concluding Comments     8
The War between Microbes and Men     9
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly     12
The War Zone     19
Immunity throughout the Life Cycle     24
Concluding Comments     24
Early Humans and Their Diseases     27
Wanderlust     27
Evolutionary Hitchhikers     28
Herpes     30
Roving Parasites and Opportunistic Microbes     33
Insect Carriers of Disease     34
Hitchhiking Insects     35
Ingestion of Parasites     37
Trichinosis     39
Tapeworms (Cestodes)     40
Noninfectious Disease and Dental Disease     41
Paleolithic Times     42
Concluding Comments     43
The Seeds of Change     45
Prologue     45
The Best of Times     47
Changing Times     48
Changes in Disease Patterns     51
Rodent-borne Diseases     52
Insect-borne Diseases     54
Togetherness in a Crowded Village     57
Intestinal Roundworms (Nematodes)     58
Hookworms     61
Noninfectious Disease and Dental Disease     62
Concluding Comments     63
Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Gene Wars     67
Shifting Paradigms     67
The Vectors of Malaria     69
Evolution of Malaria     74
The Lives of the Plasmodia Parasites of Malaria     76
The Disease Complex     80
Endemic versus Epidemic Malaria     85
Surviving the New Order through Genetics     86
Concluding Comments     96
Invitation to a Minute Worm: The Schistosomes     99
Background Check     99
The Onerous Guest     100
The African Invitation     105
The Asian Invitation     110
Concluding Comments     112
Braving New Worlds: Invisible Enemies of Settlers     115
Paradise Found and Lost     115
Avoiding Africa's Fly Belts and the Sleeping Sickness     117
Making Room for Chagas' Disease in the New World     122
Leishmaniases: Old and New World     125
Flying Worms (Filariae)     130
Concluding Comments     134
Domesticated Animals and Disease     137
Man's Best Friend     138
Dogs and Rabies     139
Cat Fanciers     140
Cats and Toxoplasmosis     141
Taking Stock     143
Goats and Brucellosis     147
Bringing the Cows Home, and Anthrax     150
No News Is Good News in the New World     153
Concluding Comments     154
Cows, Mycobacteria, and Tuberculosis     157
Mycobacteria     157
Cows and the Mycobacteria of Tuberculosis     158
Tuberculosis: The Human Disease     160
Disease from Environmental Mycobacteria     166
The Ancient Trail of Tuberculosis     167
Concluding Comments     171
The Moral Disease: Leprosy     173
What Makes a Leper?     173
The Culprit of Leprosy     174
Different Sores for Different Folks     176
The History of Leprosy     180
Concluding Comments     182
The Coming of Civilization     185
The Lands of Plenty     186
Opportunity Knocks      188
Evolution of Childhood Diseases     190
Concluding Comments     200
Syphilis: The Great Change Artist     201
The Agent     201
The Many Faces of Syphilis     203
The Yaws Version     204
The Pinta Version     205
Nonvenereal Syphilis     206
Venereal Syphilis     207
Different Scenes, Different Patterns of Sores     207
Congenital Syphilis     211
Changeovers     212
The Great Historical Pretense and the Facts     213
Concluding Comments     217
Memories of Smallpox     221
The Virus     221
The Disease     223
The Trail of Smallpox     226
Desperate Measures     230
Cowpox     233
The Hybrid Virus     233
Concluding Comments     234
Pestilence, Plague, and Rats     237
Rats Take Over the World     238
Rat Fleas and Yersinia pestis     241
The Disease     243
Origin and Spread: The Great Rat Migrations     244
Concluding Comments     248
Of Lice and Men: Plus Ticks, Mites, and Chiggers      251
Lice and Men at War     251
Wild Flea-borne Typhus     253
Human (Louse-borne) Typhus     255
Brill-Zinsser Disease     257
History of Typhus     258
Trench Fever     261
Ticks, Mites, Chiggers, and Spotted Fevers     262
Concluding Comments     267
Marching to a New World Order: European Expansion and the Industrial Revolution     269
Medieval Prologue     269
The Great Paradigm Shift     271
The Great Leap Forward     273
Concluding Comments     276
Easy Route to Fame and Gripe: Cholera, the Salmonella Gang, and Other Prominent Gut Bugs     279
The Story of Cholera     280
The Salmonella Gang     287
Other Prominent Gut Bugs     293
Concluding Comments     297
Transoceanic Hitchhikers: Yellow Fever and Its Dengue Cousin     299
Yellow Fever     300
The Yellow Fever Viral Impact on the Human Host     303
Yellow Fever Epilogue     305
Dengue Fever     306
Primary Infection of Dengue Fever     307
Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever     309
Concluding Comments      310
Food for Thought: The Mystery Diseases     313
Food Choices and Availability     314
The Mystery Diseases: For Lack of Certain Nutrients     316
The Land of All You Can Eat     331
Concluding Comments     334
The Globalization of Influenza     337
What Is Influenza?     337
The Agents of Infection     339
Shifting Subtypes and Drifting New Lineages     342
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic     343
Early History of Influenza     346
Post-1918 Influenza     348
The 1976 Swine Flu Fiasco     349
The 1997 Bird Flu Scare     351
Concluding Comments     352
Diseases of Modern Civilization     355
On the Road to Affluence     355
Operation "Clean Sweep"     357
Epidemic Poliomyelitis     359
Meningococcal Meningitis     362
The Hepatitis World     364
Obstreperous Strep and the Staph of Life     367
Opportunistic Legionnaire's Disease     375
Lyme Disease     376
The Mystery of Chronic Diseases     380
Cancer Wars     382
Concluding Comments     385
The New Viral Wars and Sleeping Dragons     387
The HIV/AIDS Pandemic     388
Hemorrhagic Fevers     398
Viral Encephalitis     406
Concluding Comments     411
Back to the Future     413
SARS: The Warning Shot Heard around the World     414
Pollution's Progress     415
A Word about Fungus     418
Germs and Chemicals Designed for War     419
Mad Cows, Designer Pigs, and Fancy Plants     422
The Greatest Danger: A Crowded World     425
Out of Order     426
Concluding Comments: Ignorance Is Not Bliss     428
Works Cited     429
Index     469

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Elyse A. Barnett, PhD (Foothill College)
Description: Ethne Barnes reviews major research in medical anthropology, effectively condensing hundreds of pages of documents that have been published in refereed journals in the past 30 years since the first PhD program. The reader is left to interpret controversies which remain in the field and which may never be fully resolved.
Purpose: In her preface, the author explains that the purpose of her book is to look at patterns of human behaviors through cultural evolution and the impact upon development of human disease. She believes that if educated persons in many disciplines understand the complex interactions between microbes and human culture, we will be able to prevent the major pandemics that have wiped out populations in history. When she introduces the reader to diseases that have made headlines in the past year, she appears to demonstrate the near impossibility of her objective.
Audience: The author states that she has taken great efforts to explain complex and detailed information in simple terms so that students can comprehend. Any professional involved with the care or study of disease and human behaviors will benefit from the breadth of materials presented, but medical anthropologists stands to gain the most from the constant reminders that despite the plethora of research, many of the original questions are still unanswered, while many new questions about disease and human behavior are unearthed every year. The author, a paleopathologist, has the expertise to introduce readers to a wide range of related issues.
Features: The author has the gift of lucid prose and the ability to condense complex material into simple, straightforward text. The paleopathologist writes, consistent with her background, in a manner that will be familiar to all healthcare professionals. In each chapter, the data and observations are summarized, followed by alternative explanations for contradictory findings. Although there is not a single chart, diagram, or picture in this 400+ page book, the description of the prose as lively in an accompanying press release is so true that the reader is motivated to read from cover to cover without interruption. However, the lack of charts, diagrams, and pictures might make it difficult to use this publication as a reference.
Assessment: For undergraduates studying medical anthropology or public health, this book will not replace the professor, but for healthcare professionals including nurses, physicians, and medical social workers, the book provides a fairly complete understanding of the subspecialty of medical anthropology which examines the interplay of human culture and the evolution of disease.

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