As we began to look through potential infectious diseases to focus our project on, we were almost immediately drawn to rabies. We knew that we wanted to use electronic music to illustrate a disease and its symptoms, and rabies offered a set of symptoms diverse enough to sustain a musically interesting piece. With its long incubation period and extremely severe neurological effects, rabies provided a framework for us to explore the progression of a healthy, stable human biological system through increasingly intense mental and physical degradation, ending with the almost universal outcome of death if not prevented or treated early. Furthermore, the disease has a very interesting historical profile; alluded to in written records as early as 2200 BCE, the disease has been studied by countless physicians and medical theorists, and has exerted a profound influence on public consciousness. Following a brief survey of the general symptoms, virology, and means of transmission of rabies, its medical history will be discussed in detail, as will its present status and possible future treatments.
A zoonotic disease, rabies is spread to humans by animals, most commonly through saliva (primarily via a dog bite). While an effective vaccine and treatment protocol has been developed, rabies is almost always fatal if proper treatment is not administered promptly after infection, with the most successful treatment regimens beginning during the first ten days of infection. However, it can take up to ten weeks for the victim to exhibit the first symptoms of disease, and once symptoms present themselves, survival is rare, with death often occurring within 2-10 days after the onset of symptoms. Rabies causes encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain...
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...stem time to fight the disease; the coma protected her brain from the encephalitis that would otherwise result from rabies. While the treatment has been successful in a few cases, it fails in the majority of attempts, and is primarily a last-ditch option, when patients do not seek medical attention before the onset of symptoms.
In conclusion, rabies is a disease with a long and complex social and medical history. At present, the disease can be easily and effectively treated if detected before the onset of symptoms. However, it is remarkably deadly, leading to a painful host of symptoms, if not treated early. Rabies poses a great threat to many developing nations, especially those with large populations of stray dogs. While doctors have developed some experimental treatments, with occasional successes, prevention remains the only effective counter to the disease.
Andrew Suy Professor Owens History 1302 13 April 2016 Polio: An American Story Polio, formerly known as poliomyelitis, an infectious viral disease that affects the central nervous system and can cause temporary or permanent paralysis. A debilitating disease that was once the affliction of our very own republic. David Oshinsky’s Polio: An American Story chronicles polio’s progression in the United States, a feat it does quite well throughout the course of the novel.
Australian films are usually criticised for their poor cinematography, weak storyline and terrible stereotypical actors. However, this is not the case for the superb all age 2011 film entitled ‘Red Dog’. Based on the true Australian legend, Red Dog is loved by many Australians; he roamed the outback in search for his owner John. This emotional movie amazed the whole of Australia, finding his way into the hearts of everyone he meets. The film portrays a positive picture of Australia’s national identity as many of the landscapes and Australian spirit can still be found across Australia nowadays, which is why Red Dog should enter the ‘Cannes Film Festival’. The portrayal of the setting, characters and language have all played
Almost 2,000 died the night of the 1928 storm in Florida. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston realistically depicts the Okeechobee hurricane that struck the coast of South Florida. The incredulous, category four storm produced winds as high as 150 mph and flood waters of up to eight feet. Hurston describes their heart wrenching experience throughout the end of the novel when Janie, the protagonist of the story, survives the devastating hurricane with her husband, Tea Cake. The book shows similarities between the overflow of Lake Okeechobee and the specific weather conditions of the hurricane, but differs regarding the aftermath of the storm.
National Canine Research Council. Investigative Report for Dog-Bite Related Fatalities 2011. National Canine Research Council, 2012. 6-50. Print.
Tuberculosis or TB is an airborn infection caused by inhaled droplets that contain mycobacterium tuberculosis. When infected, the body will initiate a cell-mediated hypersensitivity response which leads to formation of lesion or cavity and positive reaction to tuberculin skin test (Kaufman, 2011). People who have been infected with mycobacteria will have a positive skin test, but only ones who have active TB will show signs and symtoms. Basic signs and symptoms include low grade fever, cough with hemoptysis, and tachypnea. They may also show pleuristic chest pain, dyspnea, progressive weight loss, fatigue and malaise (Porth, 2011).
Polio is a viral disease. It cripples thousands of people and infects even more every year. Even though millions are inoculated, and the polio disease has been successfully purged from hundreds of countries still thousands of people and developing countries are infected and still people are dying. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) polio affects the Central Nervous System, or CNS; by infesting the intestines and transmitting it into the nerves thought the blood vessels. There the virus spreads through the nerve cells to the brain stem or other motor units, while forever damaging the nerves.
Rabies is the oldest infectious disease that is spread between species. Historical evidence of rabies dates from about 2300 BC. The first written record of rabies is in the Eshnunna code (ca.1930 BC), which states that owners of rabid dogs with symptoms of rabies should take preventative measures to keep their dog away from others. If a person were to be bitten and later become ill or die, the owner would be fined heavily. During this time and for many centuries to follow, it was commonplace to kill any animal or human who showed symptoms of the disease. Today rabies incidents involving dogs in the United States are rare, but there are increasing numbers of outbreaks among the wild animal population, notably in the southern states.
A “vaccine” or otherwise known as a vaccination, is something that stimulates someone’s immune system from a disease. Vaccines can prevent infections and actually cause it to not re-occur again. The invention of the Rabies, and Anthrax vaccines not only saved life’s, but helped scientist conduct and produce more accurate and successful research. Discovered by Louis Pasteur, in 1882, the innovation of the rabies vaccine was invented. Rabies is a critical and sometimes fatal infection that one could get with coming in contact with a “rabid” or wild animal. When this virus enters the body and spreads, it travels slowly through all the nerves and all the way to the brain. Once it reaches the brain, it becomes fatal. The number of deaths due to rabies worldwide each year is approximately 55,000. However, due to the invention of the rabies vaccine, the number of fatalities and illnesses decreased by a substantial amount.
Poliomyelitis, also known as Polio, is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system. Most victims to this disease are younger than five years of age; they are more likely to get this disease than any other age group. Out of two hundred people infected with the polio disease one is most likely to result in paralysis. The Polio Virus has decreased greatly since the Polio Vaccine was developed. In 2010 a WHO (World Health Organization) pole reported only 1,352 cases worldwide. Since the Polio Vaccine was developed the U.S has not has a single Polio case since 1979.
Smallpox is a disease from the variola virus. Smallpox has caused an estimated number of 300 million deaths in the 1900s alone. Smallpox is said to have been around since the ancient Egyptian times. The disease was eradicated in the late 20th century and two samples are still kept, one in U.S.A and one in Russia. Smallpox creates bumps and blisters all over the body and has been one of the most fatal epidemics the world has seen.
Rabies is a deadly virus that occurs in the brain. It can affect all mammals but the ones that are most commonly found with the virus are dogs, bats, raccoons, skunks, and coyotes. This means that any non-mammal can not contract the virus, such as fish, birds, and reptiles (2). The virus can be contracted by humans with saliva transfer with broken skin contact from an animal which has the disease. As this is the most common form of transferring the disease it is very believable that Tea Cake contracts the virus from the wild dog that “managed to bite [him] high up on his cheek bone once” (1). The rabies virus works by being a bullet shaped virus that directly attacks th...
Childhood vaccinations have received a lot of media in the past few years, and parents continue to question whether or not they should have their children vaccinated. This topic is a very important issue because it seems to be a trend in our society where parents are not vaccinating their children. This then leads their children becoming more susceptible to unnecessary diseases/viruses that can be prevented with vaccines. The focus of the following articles was on the association of the specific vaccines measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), and vaccines containing thimerosal, which has been a speculated reason for the cause of autism. This contentious hypothesis has many parents failing to vaccinate their children; this is especially true of many friends and family members of mine. They believe that vaccines can cause autism, and I want to prove otherwise.
Tuberculosis or known as TB remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the world, especially in developing countries. A combination of factors including high costs, limited resources and the poor performance of various diagnostic tests make the diagnosis of TB difficult in developing countries. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2014), one third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis. In 2012, nearly nine million people around the world become sick with tuberculosis disease, and there were around one point three million TB related deaths worldwide.
In recent years, the correlation between vaccines and autism has become the subject of much debate. On one side, there are the anti-vaccinators, or anti-vaccers. On the other, there’s pretty much everyone else. Despite the fact that the anti-vaccination movement has little base in scientific fact, their campaign to end early infanthood vaccinations rages on. While doctors and scientists try desperately to make parents look at the research studies, vaccination rates continue to fall. But, even in these dark times, there is still hope that scientific fact will prevail and defeat the anti-vaccination fear mongers who have caused many children to fall ill and even die because their parents did not properly vaccinate them. This is one of the most saddening scientific failures of the twenty-first century. A failure to educate the public properly has resulted in child, even infant, fatalities. The anti-vaccination movement was started based on falsified data and continues only because of a lack of knowledge and proper education of the general public.