The very first recorded case of human disease/virus

I was wondering what the very first recorded human disease/virus was and where it was said to have come from?

also what are the newest discovered diseases/viruses that have been seen to come up in the last 5 years or so?

Im wondering if they all seem to start in one particular area of the world.

Kind Regards,
DigitalGrl

[edit on 10/01/2004 by DigitalGrl]

Well...we know that malaria has been killing people for millenia; that might be one of the first Big Boys to have been noted in medical texts.

Parasites have also been noted, as have bacterial infections (stemming from wounds) and what we now know as pneumonia and the common cold. Polio and smallpox have also been noted, as well as diabetes.

It's hard to pinpoint a single case; much of what we know has been gathered from recent examinations of ancient burial sites; there are ancient texts though noting surgical procedures which were often the result of bacterial infection.

Egyption papyrus referencing various ailments

Another one

There are some great pages on paleopathology (ancient diseases) here and because I'm such a geek, I've also included this link to the works of Hippocrates

There's a wealth of information out there relating to paleopathology - alas, there (as a rule) isn't one particular vector or case of X disease occuring for the first time in X place, at X time.

Have fun reading though


[edit on 22-7-2005 by Tinkleflower]

I don't think we can say for sure. Remember that for a long time, people thought disease was caused by demons and they didn't have a good list of symptoms and definitive tests.

But the common cold is one of the older ones.

Wow,
thanks tinkleflower. That was some great information. ive never heard of the rule of X disease before. I always figured that a disease originated in a particular place or at least began to spread from there.

very interesting. thank you

if anyone has anything else please feel free to post

Kind Regards,
DigitalGrl

[edit on 10/01/2004 by DigitalGrl]

It is hard to say where any specific disease originated from really. alot of animals are carriers, and until very recently, symptoms have been mis interpreted, or un diagnosable, like aids...

no way to know if someone has aids without a blood test really, becuase they will die from a cold instead of the actual aids themselves.

Originally posted by DigitalGrl
also what are the newest discovered diseases/viruses that have been seen to come up in the last 5 years or so?

SARS comes first to mind. Flesh-eating disease does as well, though that's outside the 5-year range. There's been a large rise in diabetes incidence recently; not sure if that fits what you're looking for.

The earliest sickness that I can think of is probably fevers/flu. There are probably earlier ones than that, but it's probably one of the oldest, I would think. If cancer counts, then I'd include that one, too.

old age is the first disease we ever experienced ;o

or is it?

I wonder when people actually started dying from old age, id imagine over course of 20-30 years its very easy to get killed before there was any civilization.

[edit on 25-7-2005 by Davood]

Originally posted by Davood
I wonder when people actually started dying from old age, id imagine over course of 20-30 years its very easy to get killed before there was any civilization.
[edit on 25-7-2005 by Davood]

When we started seeing an average max old age of around 70, we started to see more "old age"-related deaths; the body starts breaking down from about 35 onwards, but doesn't become critical until the 60s/70s.

Left to it's own devices, and assuming no accidents or disease, we'd die of old age (or "lack of breath" as my mother used to say!) between 70 and 80, as a rule.