The Worst Pandemics in History – What Do They Teach Us?

A. Watch the video and answer the questions:

1. Why are urban areas like a ticking time bomb for infections?

Humans, animals, food and trash are stacked tightly upon each other and allow the diseased to be
created and spread.

2. Why didn’t our ancient ancestors experience big epidemics?

They lives in small isolated places where the spreading of germs was minimal.

3. Describe city life as portrayed in the video.

Overcrowded, unsanitary conditions. Food was prepared near severs and corpses and rats polluted
the drinking water.

4. What are zoonotic diseases?

Diseases spread from animals onto humans.

5. What do we learn about the following diseases?

Plague of Justinian:

Struck the Byzantian empire in 514, it was the bubonic plague, transferred to humans from the fleas
of rats.

Black Death:

Ships returned to Sicily with a strange disease that caused boils to grow on people’s arms
or crotches. Italy banned the sailors from coming but the disease spread anyway.

Measles, chicken pox, smallpox:

Native Americans were exposed to the disease and died because of it.

Spanish flu:
It impacted young adults the hardest. It hit people between 20 and 40 years.

6. Where does the word quarantine come from?

From Italy, when it banned the sailors from entering for 40 days
 7. What kind of advancements have been made since the „dark ages“?

Sanitation, personal hygiene, medicine, plumbing,

8. Why do we need to be hygiene conscious?

To better the conditions for crowded places filled with live animals.

9. How can we become more self-sufficient?

Grow our own food and harness natural resources and powers (wind energy, solar power)

B. Vocabulary:
Densely populated cities – where people live very near together
Sewage – where human waste goes
Stacked on top of each other – on top of each other
Set the stage –
Breeding ground – places where diseases can spread very easily
Ancestors – forefathers, the generations before us
Tribes – small, isolated groups of people living near each other
Germs – microorganism that causes diseases.
Advent of agriculture –
Abandon – leave behind
Nomadic lifestyle – not dependent of modern technology
Stationary civilizations –not moving
Unsanitary conditions – unhealthy, dirty enviroment
Rotting corpses – dead bodies in the late states of decomposation
Proximity – near
Contagions – spreadable
Unleashed – set free
Vengeance – revenge
Infamous – famous in a bad way
Deter the outbreak – prevent the spreading of a diseases or its creation
Endemic diseases – particular in certain areas or people
Measles – a disease with low fever and rashes
Chicken pox – a disease between children with low fever and vesicles
Smallpox – a disease where spots appear on the skin
Pre-Colombian population – people before Columbus attacked the Native Americans
Fester –become worse or more intense
Sustainable power sources – wind power, solar power
Perform CPR – perform heart massge and mouth to mouth to keep a person alive
Debilitating – diseases that makes people weak
Species – kinds of
C. Do you think the advice given in the video is relevant? What are your thoughts on the current
pandemic covid-19, the measures taken in our country, reactions of the people, etc.?