Between 1520 and 1527, a smallpox epidemic ravages Latin America. By the end of its run, the disease has managed to knock off two of the greatest civilizations in human history. It kills millions of Mexico’s native inhabitants, weakening the Aztec nation enough in one year that by 1521, Cortez and his forces have no trouble capturing Tenochtitlan. Incan ruler Huayna Capec falls to the disease, along with 200,000 of his citizens, virtually erasing their society from the map, and much of their knowledge from the human collective.
This wasn’t the genesis of the epidemic as a phenomenon. In fact, by the time the first Inca or Aztec felt his temperature start to rise, or noticed small bumps on his arm, the human population had faced disease of epidemic proportions no fewer than five times already.
The usual suspect was bubonic plague. Between the sixth, 14th, and 17th centuries the plague is believed to kill 137, 000, 000 people. It repeatedly kisses Europe like a stalker with a mistletoe cap; feeding on the overcrowding, filth, and ignorance of a species still learning how to effectively share information by word of mouth. It’s a gift from the Subcontinent that keeps on giving.
Then there is “The Sweat,” a disease of the late 15th and early 16th century so perfectly married to human physiology it typically snatches a life in a mere 24 hours.
The “European Epidemic” of 1540 kills three-quarters of the First Peoples of Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia.
If you toast your two best friends for New Year's in 1563 London, drink long and hard, because statistically, one of you won’t live until Christmas because the plague is doin’ it like that.
Measles and smallpox and Yellow Fever and the flu pockmark history much the same as they scarred the corpses and bodies of their millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of victims over time.
And in 1959 Belgian Congo; after the printing press, and vaccine, and television, and Darwin, and polio, a family cries at the clinic because their husband and father is sick and the doctors don’t know what is wrong with him. And we don’t know until much later that he is the herald of a new plague.
We can’t quite nail it down in 1981, when gay men’s immune systems start shutting down, and their symptoms earn the monniker GRID—gay-related immune deficiency.
But we’re “sophisticated” now, and started tracking the trend. We become aware that a strange, new condition is present in 14 countries. We realize that something is literally eating the immune systems of thousands of young men, young women, and babies around the world.
By late 1982, we name the condition “acquired immune deficiency syndrome.” It is important apparently, that you “ACQUIRED” it—as though any disease that invades a body hasn’t at that point become an “acquired” condition. But there is no panic. There is no epidemic. There is just a statistical metronome as the number grows, and undesirables die.
1982 is also the year the first hemophiliac gets the virus from a blood transfusion. And we blink for a second. Maybe it’s not just the gays at risk. This could be a problem.
Three months after announcing he has AIDS in 1985, Rock Hudson dies.
We should have noticed it then. The truth is, nobody in the generation that’s going to have to deal with the fat end of the problem knows who he is, or was.
The Journal of the American Medical Association coins the name Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1986 to describe the virus at the root of the problem.
1987, Liberace dies. Nobody knows him either, except that he’s the most flamboyant man in America, and plays the piano like a carnival ride. And if you’ve never heard Liberace play, you have missed a singular treat, and owe yourself a download from somewhere.
And at this time television and the movies becomes the strongest information tool we have, not because the news media is all over the story, but because faces we recognize from sitcoms and old family shows start dropping left and right.
Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, Mike Brady from the Brady Bunch, Norman Bates from Psycho, Jack Ewing from Dallas.
In 1990, AIDS becomes real to me, because Ryan White dies. He has been talking to me about AIDS through my High School years, and I thought we'd find a cure in time to save him. Turns out, its not really that high of a priority.
But AIDS becomes real to the everyday man, when Magic Johnson stepped up to the microphone in 1991 to announce he was HIV positive.
By the end of this year, an estimated 25 million people will have died from AIDS. Some of them are people I love. In Africa alone, there are 12 million AIDS orphans. THIS YEAR, almost 3,000,000 people have died from AIDS, 4 million more contracted the disease. They join a club of 40 million people who are living with it.
We are facing a crisis. It is a scourge as sharp as bubonic plague, or smallpox, or The Sweat, or Yellow Fever.
If you have not been touched personally by AIDS in 2006, I suggest that one of two things is happening.
It is possible that you are incredibly lucky.
We who are tasting the pain, and smelling the fear could SURE use your good fortune on this side of the fight.
It is also possible that you just don’t get out very much, and haven’t called your family in years. You should give them a call, and get caught up on what's happening outside. Sooner or later this disease is going to knock on a door you're familiar with.
Either way, I ask you today to spend a moment of time considering the AIDS crisis.
I only have one source to send you to, one of my childhood heroes has put a LOT of information in one place. Please hit his website today.
http://www.istandwithmagic.com/
Thank you.
--Stew.
References Used in this blog entry:
http://fohn.net/history-of-aids/
http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm
http://www.genealogyinc.com/enc_epidemics/index.html
This wasn’t the genesis of the epidemic as a phenomenon. In fact, by the time the first Inca or Aztec felt his temperature start to rise, or noticed small bumps on his arm, the human population had faced disease of epidemic proportions no fewer than five times already.
The usual suspect was bubonic plague. Between the sixth, 14th, and 17th centuries the plague is believed to kill 137, 000, 000 people. It repeatedly kisses Europe like a stalker with a mistletoe cap; feeding on the overcrowding, filth, and ignorance of a species still learning how to effectively share information by word of mouth. It’s a gift from the Subcontinent that keeps on giving.
Then there is “The Sweat,” a disease of the late 15th and early 16th century so perfectly married to human physiology it typically snatches a life in a mere 24 hours.
The “European Epidemic” of 1540 kills three-quarters of the First Peoples of Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia.
If you toast your two best friends for New Year's in 1563 London, drink long and hard, because statistically, one of you won’t live until Christmas because the plague is doin’ it like that.
Measles and smallpox and Yellow Fever and the flu pockmark history much the same as they scarred the corpses and bodies of their millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of victims over time.
And in 1959 Belgian Congo; after the printing press, and vaccine, and television, and Darwin, and polio, a family cries at the clinic because their husband and father is sick and the doctors don’t know what is wrong with him. And we don’t know until much later that he is the herald of a new plague.
We can’t quite nail it down in 1981, when gay men’s immune systems start shutting down, and their symptoms earn the monniker GRID—gay-related immune deficiency.
But we’re “sophisticated” now, and started tracking the trend. We become aware that a strange, new condition is present in 14 countries. We realize that something is literally eating the immune systems of thousands of young men, young women, and babies around the world.
By late 1982, we name the condition “acquired immune deficiency syndrome.” It is important apparently, that you “ACQUIRED” it—as though any disease that invades a body hasn’t at that point become an “acquired” condition. But there is no panic. There is no epidemic. There is just a statistical metronome as the number grows, and undesirables die.
1982 is also the year the first hemophiliac gets the virus from a blood transfusion. And we blink for a second. Maybe it’s not just the gays at risk. This could be a problem.
Three months after announcing he has AIDS in 1985, Rock Hudson dies.
We should have noticed it then. The truth is, nobody in the generation that’s going to have to deal with the fat end of the problem knows who he is, or was.
The Journal of the American Medical Association coins the name Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in 1986 to describe the virus at the root of the problem.
1987, Liberace dies. Nobody knows him either, except that he’s the most flamboyant man in America, and plays the piano like a carnival ride. And if you’ve never heard Liberace play, you have missed a singular treat, and owe yourself a download from somewhere.
And at this time television and the movies becomes the strongest information tool we have, not because the news media is all over the story, but because faces we recognize from sitcoms and old family shows start dropping left and right.
Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke, Mike Brady from the Brady Bunch, Norman Bates from Psycho, Jack Ewing from Dallas.
In 1990, AIDS becomes real to me, because Ryan White dies. He has been talking to me about AIDS through my High School years, and I thought we'd find a cure in time to save him. Turns out, its not really that high of a priority.
But AIDS becomes real to the everyday man, when Magic Johnson stepped up to the microphone in 1991 to announce he was HIV positive.
By the end of this year, an estimated 25 million people will have died from AIDS. Some of them are people I love. In Africa alone, there are 12 million AIDS orphans. THIS YEAR, almost 3,000,000 people have died from AIDS, 4 million more contracted the disease. They join a club of 40 million people who are living with it.
We are facing a crisis. It is a scourge as sharp as bubonic plague, or smallpox, or The Sweat, or Yellow Fever.
If you have not been touched personally by AIDS in 2006, I suggest that one of two things is happening.
It is possible that you are incredibly lucky.
We who are tasting the pain, and smelling the fear could SURE use your good fortune on this side of the fight.
It is also possible that you just don’t get out very much, and haven’t called your family in years. You should give them a call, and get caught up on what's happening outside. Sooner or later this disease is going to knock on a door you're familiar with.
Either way, I ask you today to spend a moment of time considering the AIDS crisis.
I only have one source to send you to, one of my childhood heroes has put a LOT of information in one place. Please hit his website today.
http://www.istandwithmagic.com/
Thank you.
--Stew.
References Used in this blog entry:
http://fohn.net/history-of-aids/
http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm
http://www.genealogyinc.com/enc_epidemics/index.html
(originally posted 1 Dec 06)
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