Well hey and welcome back to Heimler’s History. Now in the last video we began Unit 9 of our AP World History Curriculum and we talked about all the new technologies that came to us in the 20th century. Now even with the staggering advancement of medical technology in the 20th century, the spread of disease remained a persistent scourge for the human race. And I probably shouldn’t say the spread of disease “was” a problem because I happen to be recording this right in the middle of a quarantine for a global outbreak of the Coronavirus. So it is still a problem. So in this video we’re going to consider the spread of disease in the 20th century. So if you’re ready to get them brain cows milked, well then you’re probably gonna have to wait for a vaccine for the Coronavirus because I can’t really get near you right now. So let’s just get to it. Okay, in this video we’re going to consider the spread of disease from three angles. First we’ll look at diseases associated with poverty. Second, we’ll look at global epidemics. And third, we’ll consider diseases associated with living longer lives. Okay, first, diseases associated with poverty. Now, as a general rule, impoverished people live in poor housing conditions, often have to contend with contaminated water, and have relatively limited access to healthcare. And all of this leads to the spread of diseases that wealthier populations don’t have to contend with. Now to be clear, I’m not saying that only impoverished people get these diseases, but that they do contract them in greater proportions precisely because of their impoverished condition. For example, malaria. This is a disease carried by mosquitoes and it’s especially prevalent in tropical environments. Many outbreaks of malaria have been documented, for example, in Africa. And as of now there is no vaccine for malaria, but mosquito nets treated with pesticide have often helped keep people safe from malaria while they sleep. Another example of a disease associated with poverty is tuberculosis. This is an airborne disease which is transmitted through coughing and sneezing. Now this disease is associated with poverty because the impoverished, especially in urban areas, tend to live in very close quarters with one another and that makes transmission very easy. And yet another example is cholera. This is a bacterial disease which transmitted through contaminated water. It causes severe vomiting, and diarrhea, and dehydration. And it’s responsible for about 95,000 deaths per year, and it's associated with poverty because the impoverished usually don’t have access to clean water. Okay, now let’s turn the corner and talk about the emergence of global epidemics after 1900. As it turns out, for all the blessing that globalization has afforded the world population, it has also created the occasion for some curses, namely, the spread of infectious disease. And perhaps most significant in the 20th century was the spread of the Spanish Flu in 1918. As World War I drew to a close, many soldiers were infected with a particularly brutal strain of the flu, and as they returned home all over the world, they brought this flu with them. Over the course of a year, about one-fifth of the world’s population became infected and that led to the deaths of something like 20-50 million people worldwide. A second significant epidemic in the 20th century was HIV/AIDS. Now HIV is the virus which causes the condition called AIDS. And AIDS just depresses a person’s immune system so that normal, run of the mill viruses and bacteria that they would normally be able to fight off end up killing them. There was a major outbreak of HIV in the 1980s and it was spread through the exchange of bodily fluids. And in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century about 25 million people died of this disease. And recently a new medical treatment has been developed to treat patients with AIDS. And it doesn’t cure the disease, but it keeps it from destroying the immune system and therefore helps infected people fight off the other diseases that would kill them. A third significant disease that was spread in the 20th and 21st centuries was Ebola. And this disease, while it doesn’t spread as easily as something like the Spanish Flu, has a devastating death rate attached to it. About half the people who are infected by this disease will die. In 1976 there was a major outbreak of Ebola in the Congo and then in 2014 there was another outbreak in West Africa that killed 11,000 Africans. And as I record this there is currently another outbreak of Ebola in Africa, but it’s too soon, we don’t really know what to say about it yet. A fourth significant disease spread in the 21st century is well, Coronavirus, or COVID-19. Just like the Spanish Flu it spread along trade and travel routes, and just like these other diseases, it is significantly altering our social and economic realities. But since we’re still in the middle of the outbreak, there isn’t much we can say about it historically. Okay, now let’s shift and talk about diseases that are associated with longer lives. You see now that medical technology has afforded us all like a decade or two tacked onto the end of our lives, there are some diseases that have occurred in greater numbers simply because we are living longer. And the first is Alzheimer’s Disease. And this is a form of dementia that disproportionately affects the aging population. Those who are afflicted by it suffer memory loss, and as the disease progresses, it undermines basic bodily functions and eventually leads to death. Second disease associated with longer life is heart disease. A longer life means another decade to jam McDonald’s cheeseburgers into my gullet. And needless to say, MORE cheeseburgers in my guts means more greasy buildup in my heart. And that leads to a higher incidence of heart disease. Now, poor eating is certainly not the only reason for heart disease, but it is certainly there. And with respect to global deaths, heart disease is a big one. According to the World Health Organization cardiovascular disease is the number 1 cause of death globally, claiming the lives of about 18 million people annually. And on that cheery note, that’s what you need to know about Unit 9 Topic 2 of AP World History. And good news, it’s digital so there’s no possibility of disease transmission. And if you want me to keep making videos like this one, then subscribe over here so that I know you want me to keep on going. Heimler out