The origin of Disease Shahzad Ansari

All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. Thomas Mann

Diseases have been around since the dawn of life they were one of the simplest form of life on the newly created Earth. Earth at the beginning was an extremely hostile world with methane and co2 filled atmosphere volcanos lightning bolts striking everywhere and high radiation levels, during this time there was no life on earth but one billion years after the creation of earth primitive life started to kindle in the hot fiery mass called earth. After one billion years primitive microbial life started to originate, evidence of these microbial life were and are found in sedimentary rocks far below the earth called Stromatolites. These rocks are fossilized remains of bacteria that were found in Australia, Africa, and Green land. Some of these Stromatolites were dated back to 3.85 billion years ago. The question of how these primitive bacteria were able to survive these harsh conditions have baffled scientist to this day.

The origins of these bacteria have been speculated for years but the two main theories is that life arose from nonliving matter on earth after its cooled and became a more hospitable place this is called Terrestrial origins or the other one is life that predates earth seeded spore onto our planet Terrestrial origins. Scientist prefer the Terrestrial origins over the later, the reason to this is because most astronomers agree that space is too inhospitable for life. But the idea of Terrestrial origin also has

its problems. It has been proven that even the simplest of bacteria can die under high radiation, the experiment on the Gemini IX that circled earths orbit showed that.

Louis Pasture, Spontaneous generation and flies. It was commonly believed that organisms such as grubs, snakes, maggots, etc., would spontaneously generate out of spoiled meat or from the bottom of lakes. Even if the 19th century people believed that maggots would generate form the rotting meat, though in 1668 an Italian Physician by the name of Francesco Redi proved that maggots werent actually generating inside the rotted meat but rather there were invisible eggs laid on the meat by flies and the maggots were the first stage of the flies life. In the 19th century French microbiologist Louis Pasteur proved that microorganisms did not spontaneously generate, this would disprove every theory of spontaneous generation proving that life must come from life. But the question arose If life has to come from life where did the first living things come from.

Evolution of lifeChemical or prebiotic evolution is the idea that states life originated form chemicals and extremely high energy, the theory has been around for many years since the 1920s. Russian scientist A.I Oprin and English Scientist J.B.S Haldane developed the theory of Chemosynthesis hypothesis; the theory stated that the conditions of primitive earth had chemical reactions that caused the origination of life. Poisonous gas, super charged lightening; radioactive elements, solar radiation and gravity were all believed to be major factors in this theory of Evolution.

Believing that this was the reason for life they recreated the conditions that existed on primordial earth and charged it with electricity and heat for week, the result was more than one hundred organic compounds, Amino acid proteins sugar and nucleic acid were found, and these were key elements for life on our planet.

What caused disease? When Louis Pasteur was a child, it was common knowledge that a man having a seizure or a dog with rabies was taken over by evil spirits. Incantation rituals and potions were used to get rid of these spirits. But even in the enclosing darkness of ignorance there was a small candle of knowledge, as far as the early Roman Empire. The Romans theorized that there were invisible seeds that floated in the air and were inhaled; this caused the various diseases and sicknesses. In the 14th century a Italian by the name of Girolamo Fracastoro Theorized that these seeds were actually living agents and 200 years later a Austrian Marcus von Plenciz theorized that each disease had a certain bacterial agent and that it was not all caused by one organism .

The development of Vaccines. The beginning of the 20th century had a large amount of vaccines that could prevent many infections and Aseptic and Antiseptic Methodology was established this allowed safe medical procedures such as Child birth, Surgery and Injury. But even though we have come so far in medical science we were still unable to cure any infections or diseases, so if someone was to contract a disease they would be given morphine to ease the pain but not much more could be done to help the diseased and infected. Now there are many Antibiotics that are used to cure diseases, they were sprayed on

crops injected into animals and mixed into liquids that we drink to make it safer. These practices are stilled used today.

The Development of Antibiotics Gerhard Johannes Domagk studied at Kiel Medical School and at the beginning of the First World War was sent to the eastern hospitals to treat wounded soldiers. After the first war he was left in poverty and was barely able to support himself through school but he earned his degree and began to work in a hospital, soon after that he began to research pathogens and made a very important discovery. He found that Bacteria is easier to kill when it has been weakened this was the base idea behind antibiotics. He later was employed by Bayer a company that researched in Chemo therapy which was not as famous at the time. He proceeded to work with a famous chemist Josef Klarer, together they were able to develop a cure for streptococcus. The way it worked is that it didnt kill the disease but it weekend it and allowed the immune system to kill the disease.

Tuberculosis

TB is a disease that has been plaguing man for thousands of years; human remains have been found with TB that has been dated back thousands of years ago. This gave it the name White Death. Alone in the US it has killed more people than any other. The disease attacks all parts of the body but usually starts with the lungs, ultimately the infected would drown in their own body fluids. Due to modern medicine the death rate due to TB is low and the majority infected had AIDS. TB is an incredibly resistant bacterium because it cant be killed by chemical agents or drying although direct sunlight will

kill it. Since it is immotile the only way it can be transferred from one to another is by contact or coughing it in the air and even when it is in the air it can survive for weeks and months making it a very strong virus strain.

Lyme Disease Lyme disease is the most