Perhaps most interesting to me in Chapter 7 was the discussion of trade, and how it brought an unexpected traveler: disease. Living in modern day societies, it's standard to accept that traveling to a new area may cause you to fall ill from something as simple as drinking native water, or even less anticipated, drinking an iced beverage. We are constantly warned to be careful in our travels, and are prepared for the worst with a variety of shots before we even step foot in foreign lands. Whenever we visit the doctor now, we are asked if we have been somewhere international within the last thirty or so days that could be causing our symptoms, or worse, carrying germs that could infect other patients and practitioners.
Yet this practice or thought process wasn't commonplace prior to modern medicine. As Classical era travelers made their way along trade roots, no one considered that along with gold, slaves, or other goods, they carried with them dangerous diseases that could put their trading companions at great risk. As these diseases spread through the communities involved in trade, there was little way to control its contagious nature other than to simply wait until immunity could be developed, even if that meant thousands died in the mean time.
Perhaps the view is grim or morbid, but the idea that a simple interaction between strangers could lead to the deaths of thousands has always been interesting to me. Particularly as HIV/AIDS is becoming less and less of a death sentence, I wonder what the next "plague" will be to mankind, how it will spread, and how quickly we will combat it.
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