Diseases of civilization

In another book, Cancer Disease of Civilization Stefansson recoimted his experiences starting in 1906, whereby he initially found that the more remote or Stone Age Eskimos never had cancer. Only on acquiring the food habits of Western civilization did cancer appear, as well as tooth problems. The same remarks can be made for a vegetarian diet. An interesting aside is that circa 1840 it was reported that Paris had four times the cancer incidence as Eondon (Stefansson, 1960, p. 28). The discrepancy was not explained except to suggest that perhaps Paris was four times more civilized than Eondon Attempts by Stefansson to obtain further information about cancer incidence in these and prior times were imsuccessful. 

Stefansson, V. 1960. Cancer Disease of Civilization An Anthropological and Historical Study, with an introduction by Rene Dubos. New York HUl and Wang. 

A Communication to the Thirteenth International Convention on Vital Substances, Nutrition and the Diseases of Civilization at Luxembourg and Trier on 18-24 September 1987... 

I greatly appreciate the honor of being associated with the International Society for Research on Vital Substances, Nutrition, and the Diseases of Civilization, in succession to my friend Dr. Albert Schweitzer, and I take this opportunity to express my thanks to the members and officers of the Society. 

Vitamin therapy treatment for the mentally ill. Science 160 (1968) 1181. Orthomolecular somatic and psychiatric medicine (A communication to the Thirteenth International Convention on Vital Substances, Nutrition, and the Diseases of Civilization at Luxembourg and Trier, 18—24 September 1967). Zeitschrift Vitalstoffe-Zivilisationskrankheiten 1/68 (Jan 1968) 3—5. SP 135 ... 

Herbs have been used as medical treatments since the beginning of civilization and some herbal derivatives (e.g., aspirin, reserpine, and digitalis) have become a mainstay of human pharmacotherapy. For cardiovascular diseases, herbal treatments have been used in patients with congestive heart failure, systolic hypertension, angina pectoris, atherosclerosis, cerebral insufficiency, venous insufficiency, and arrhythmia. Scientific validation of several plant species has proved the efficacy of the botanicals in reducing the... 

Hazard vulnerability risk assessments need to be reviewed at least on an annual basis. A new industry may have located to the area, or events of the world may have changed. For example, the threat of bioterrorism, emerging infectious diseases, or civil strife may become part of our reality. The emergency management plan may have to be revised, and an appendix may have to be added for newly identified risks. This process then leads to the next phase of disaster management—mitigation. 

Insects were the first major focus of pest control, whether to prevent the destruction of food or fiber crops or to limit the spread of insect vectors of disease. There is little doubt that the use of insecticides had a profound impact on the further development of civilization. The control of anopheline mosquitoes and malarial infection, as well as vectors for typhus. 

Cordain L, Lindeberg S, Hurtado M, et al. Acne vulgaris, a disease of Western civilization. Arch Dermatol 2002 138 1584-1590. 

Having made a fast transit of the medical adventure of the human race until the end of time in Chapter 1, we will step back a little to pick up the record for the entwined story of civilization and medicine so that we can consider how the human infectious diseases arose. This will allow us to look at another kind of medical record the record of human history and its well-being and survival that we carry within our genes, as DNA, and its profound impact on modern medicine, especially molecular medicine. Our genetic history is also entwined with the migration of people and the rise of civilizations. We are the molecules of which we are made, and the story of migration and survival is the story of both. 

A small-scale operation of this type was conducted during the Asian influenza threat (1957-1958). At first, it seemed like an almost insurmountable task. How to alert, inform, and protect 180,000,000 people from a disease that might occur within the next several months How to meet the many technical problems of the detection and isolation of the virus, the type and potency of a vaccine, the mass preparation of vaccine, the orderly distribution of vaccine, the adoption of priorities for vaccination The medical and health professions had to be given scientific information concerning the threat and its characteristics. The public had to be alerted and informed. Many of us working in the fields of civil defense and aware of the small public response to our best efforts looked askance at the Asian influenza challenge. Perhaps the smallness of the groups that came for instruction in civil defense in spite of best efforts chilled our ardor for the task ahead. 

If we were to have over the next three or four or five years recurring plagues of widespread different diseases of different sorts, if our crops were to be affected by bacterial agents, if we were to be continually in a state of suspense, not knowing what disease was going to descend upon us next, obviously our industrial progress and our very civilization would be shaken and we would slide backwards, while our opponents moved forward. 

A political look is supplied by Michael Fumento in The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. It has been said that AIDS is the first disease with civil rights. Stephen Joseph, in Dragon Within the Gates The Once and Future AIDS Epidemic, observes that an epidemic requires not only a microbe but also a social context. And in the case of AIDS, there has been an attempt to democratize the disease and to assume that everyone is liable, whereas the outbreaks are only within certain pockets of the population. These are those persons whose social habits put them at risk. At the same time, there is the distinct possibility that the disease can be controlled and eliminated within these population brackets. Their homogeneity, which puts them at risk, also makes it easier to contain the outbreak of the disease. (A counter to this argument is the widespread AIDS epidemic in Africa.)... 

The application of Lind s teaching to the prevention of scurvy had made it a rare disease in civilized communities long before ascorbic acid was isolated, identified, and synthesized in 1928-1933. The historian of the future, looking back on this time, might well conclude that the discovery of vitamin C was important not so much for the inunediate nutritional benefits that it brought to mankind as for the stimulus it gave to the study of metabolic processes involving the vitamin. 

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