SS Connection

A disease is a disorder that affects the structure or function of a organism. It has been around as early as 400 B.C.E. The first cataloged disease was Cholera in 400 B.C.E by the Athenian physician Hippocrates as he cataloged the diseases of his world. Since then many other diseases have appeared, but our knowledge about diseases has also increased. Diseases are so powerful they can cause whole civilizations to rise or fall. One of the most important time in history were diseases caused a civilization to rise or fall was when the Spaniards conquered the Aztec empire.

On April 1519, Hernando Cortes and about 600 men stepped ashore along eastern coast of Mexico. Although sent to Mexico to explore and trade, they became conquistadors of the enormous Aztec empire. The Aztecs were conquered by Cortes due to great Spanish weapons, a time of political unrest in the Aztec Empire, but mainly their greatest weapon was the diseases they brought to the new world.

Even though the Aztecs greatly outnumbered the Spaniards, smallpox, typhus, and other diseases killed millions and left others too sick to put up a strong fight. In fact successive epidemics would take away 25, 50, and eventually 75% of the population of an entire city-state within a year. My PBL project relates to social studies because it includes the identification, prevention, containment, and many other things about diseases.