Black-eyed Susan (the black in the middle is the seeds) Before people had any idea why anything happened, or how, they could at least find out what happened. People watched plants grow. [...]
(Tomb of Rekhmire, Egypt, ca. 1450 BC) Who invented the first bellows? About 14,000 BC, potters in China started to use kilns to fire clay pots. By about 3500 BC, people in West Asia were beginning to [...]
Kids with yellow fever in Mississippi about 1870. See how all the people are white? The hospital wasn't letting black kids in, or hiring black women as nurses. Where did [...]
A woman with typhus Nobody seems to have caught typhus before about 1450 AD, so the disease probably didn't exist until then. Typhus is an infection caused by tiny germs (bacteria) [...]
Typhoid fever: A person with typhoid rash (Iran) Is it typhoid or typhus? Typhoid fever isn't the same thing as typhus at all. You catch typhus from being bit by lice that [...]
A child with tuberculosis What is tuberculosis? Tuberculosis is a lung disease caused by germs. Today we can usually cure it with antibiotics. But in antiquity there was no cure. Many people died [...]
A baby with smallpox (from the CDC) - History of smallpox What was smallpox? Smallpox was a very serious disease caused by a virus. Many people died of it. Smallpox caused [...]
Opium poppy flower Opium comes from a kind of poppy flower. It evolved around 100 million years ago in West Asia and Central Asia. People probably realized as soon as they got to West Asia, about 60,000 [...]
A kid with measles Symptoms of measles Measles is a sickness that first makes you feel sick, with a fever, a cough, and a runny nose. Then it gives you [...]
A baby with malaria (from World Health Organization) - Malaria history How do you get malaria? You catch malaria by being bitten by a mosquito that has malaria parasites living inside it. [...]
