Tropical Medicine and Modernity - Essay Example

Fifteen million poor people in 73 countries suffer from gross enlargement of the limbs, a symptom of the chronic filarial disease (Thomson, G. 2006a).

      Tropical medicine has become famous during the 19th and 20th centuries. Europe and North America were also affected by tropical diseases in the 20th century. In the summer of 1793, an epidemic of yellow fever forced the United States government to relocate from Philadelphia to New York. Tropical medicine was established by colonial powers, England, France, and the Netherlands to protect citizens in the colonies. Later on, the concern spread out reaching the tropic in protecting the citizen from the colonies. The trend increased dramatically with the independence of the former colonies in the 1960s. (Thomson, G.2006b).

Travel medicine, a branch of tropical medicine, continues the focus on the health of outsiders visiting the tropics. International health considers the broader questions that concern populations of the tropics, focusing on health and development, rather than the treatment of individual cases of particular diseases. Clinical tropical medicine is a subspecialty of infectious diseases dealing with selected parasitic and fewer bacterial (e.g., leprosy) and viral (e.g., yellow fever) pathogens. Outside tropical regions, clinical tropical medicine is mainly the concern of travel medicine and infectious disease specialists. Within the tropics, tropical medicine is for the most part indistinguishable from general medicine (Thomson, G.2006b). Because of the increasing number of people being afflicted with such diseases tropical medicine has become famous in the mid-19th century up to the 20th century. Vaccines and other safety measures are developed including personal hygiene to prevent acquiring such diseases.

What were some of the problems these new specialists had
to face?

      Since tropical diseases are usually caused by organisms that are not usually seen by the naked eye, anyone who had exposure to it will surely have a tropical disease. This is one of the problems that they encounter during the development of tropical medicine. Bacteria and viruses usually cause these diseases. Another more complex organism that causes these diseases is called a parasite. Since they usually live or developed in temperate climate zones, the only prevention a person can do is to be clean. Bacteria and other pathogens are present anytime anywhere. Proper hygiene is one of the most effective ways in preventing the disease. Others would have a vaccine to make sure that the bacteria or viruses present in the environment would not affect them. Poverty problems are one of the main causes of negligence in the said diseases. The health problems facing resource-poor countries result in more from socioeconomic conditions than specific ecological conditions. Even epidemiological changes in some of the classic tropical diseases, such as resurgent trypanosomiasis in the east or central Africa or, recently, yellow fever in Kenya, may stem more from poverty or civil strife than from biological factors alone

How did exploration and travel in various parts of the world
create new challenges for western medicine, not only 100 years ago, but today as well?

      The fight against tropical diseases has been increasing worldwide. Asians and other countries who are susceptible to such diseases are being given vaccines and proper hygiene educated to prevent the distribution of the organism. Recently a bird flu scare alerts the world. The said disease originated in Asia and an immediate study was done. Travelers from Asia and those who have been in Asia are being isolated in the airport to prevent the distribution of the disease. Now, because of new technology, medicine was able to create vaccines to fight the said diseases. The occurrence of the new disease caused by tropical bacteria has been the main concern of medicine, not only in Asia but around the world as well. An increasing number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases is also alarming.

The discipline of tropical medicine in Europe would best be absorbed within the specialty of infectious diseases, of which parasitic diseases are one viable and essential subspecialty; travel medicine should be another. This cannot occur, however, without the strengthening and recognition of infectious diseases as a valid subspecialty of internal medicine, as it is perceived in the United States. The uniquely British concept of a separate career structure for specialists in sexually transmitted diseases divorced from the broader subject of infectious diseases is ill-adapted to a future within Europe and the broader world. Because of the widespread diseases, World Health Organization releases several guidelines for and possible prevention of tropical diseases.