Chapter-13

Why Do We Fall Ill

Anything that prevents proper functioning of cells and tissues will lead to a lack of
proper activity of the body. When a person experiences such a condition, he is said to
be ‘ill’ or ‘in poor health’.
What is health?
• A state of ‘being well’
• A state of being well enough to function well physically, mentally and socially.

Which are the factors important for staying in good health?

• Physical Environment
• Social Environment
• Cleanliness (Personal Hygiene and Public Cleanliness)
• Good Food
• Good economic conditions
• Social Equality and harmony (an example of how community issues effect individual health)
• To have the opportunity to realise the unique potential in all of us

Disease = Dis Ease = Disturbed Ease and there is a specific cause for this
discomfort.
Disease is any harmful change that interferes with the normal appearance, structure, or
function of the body or any of its parts.

Conditions essential for being free of a disease

• There should be no discomfort to the individual.
• There should be no specific and particular cause for a discomfort

Difference between being ‘healthy’ and ‘disease free’

• It is possible to be in poor health without actually suffering from a disease
• When we think about health, we think about societies and communities
• When we think about disease, we think about individual sufferers

To identify a disease, we look for signs and symptoms.

Symptoms are
• Unfavorable change in the functioning or appearance of one or more systems of the body.
• Signs – things we feel as being “wrong”.
• Symptoms give an indication of the disease.
Example: Headache, cough, fever, loose motions, pus in the wound etc are symptoms

Laboratory tests are done to confirm the presence and type of disease.

Types of Diseases (based on Duration)

Acute Diseases Eg. Common Cold Chronic Diseases Eg. Elephantiasis

An Acute disease does not cause major
effects on
general health
An acute disease may affect a person for a
few days or weeks
An acute disease will not cause drastic long
term affects on the health of a person.
A Chronic disease will cause major effects on
general
health(Loss of weight, feeling tired all the time,
being short of breath)
A chronic disease may affect a person for years
A Chronic disease will cause drastic long term
affects on the health of a person.
(Prolonged general poor health)

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Causes of Diseases (These are just examples and are not to be generalized for every
disease.)

Immediate Causes Contributory Causes

 Infection by  Lack of nourishment
Microorganisms  Economic Status of the Household
(Pathogens=Disease causing
organisms)
 Genetic Factors

First Level Cause Second Level Cause Third Level Cause

Infection by Microorganisms Lack of Good nourishment Poverty and lack of public
services

Infectious causes Non infectious Causes

• are external causes
• Eg. Infectious agents like
microbes
• Microbes can spread in the
community and infect others
• Lead to Infectious Diseases
• are internal causes
• Eg. Some cancers are caused by genetic
abnormalities
• Cannot infect others
• Lead to Non-Infectious Diseases

Control of the disease depends on

• the type of Disease
• the immediate causes
• are they infectious or non infectious
Infectious diseases are caused by Infectious Agents i.e. the microorganisms.

Name of the Disease Caused by Special Biological

(Infectious Agents) Characteristics
Common Cold, Influenza, Dengue, AIDS VIRUSES Live inside host cells
Multiply very quickly
Typhoid fever, Anthrax, Tuberculosis, BACTERIA Live inside host cells
Cholera Multiply very quickly
Common Skin Infections like Ringworm FUNGI Live inside host cells
Multiply very quickly
Malaria, Kala-azar Protozoans Multiply very quickly
Some intestinal Infections, Elephantiasis DIFFERENT Multiply slowly
SPECIES OF
WORMS

Other Examples:
• Staphylococci, a bacteria causes acne on skin
• Trypanosoma, a protozoan causes Sleeping Sickness.
• Leishmania, a protozoan causes Kala-azar.

Controlling the Infectious Agents:

• Closely related groups have similar life processes.
• Therefore , drugs that block one of these life processes in one member of the group is
likely to be effective against other members of the group.

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 • However , the same drug may not work against a microbe belonging to a different
group.

What are Antibiotics?

Antibiotics (Greek anti, “against”; bios, “life”) are chemical compounds used to kill or
inhibit the growth of infectious organisms.
• Commonly block biochemical pathways important for the growth of bacteria.
• Example- An antibiotic – Penicillin blocks the bacterial processes that build cell wall. If
human beings take Penicillin, it will not effect humans as human cells do not have cell
walls.
• therefore antibiotics will control a number of bacterial infections.
• Antibiotics do not work against viral infections as viruses do not have the same
biochemical processes as bacteria.
• That is why an antibiotic does not control viral infections like common cold.

Spread of Infectious Diseases/How they can be communicated?

Since the infectious agents(microbes can move from an affected person to a healthy
person, therefore these diseases are also called Communicable Diseases.

Medium for spread Process of spread of the disease Names of Diseases

of the disease that can be spread
this way
Air • When an infected person sneezes or Common Cold,
(Airborne coughs, little droplets are thrown Pneumonia,
Diseases) out by him. Tuberculosis.
Water • When the excreta from someone suffering from Cholera
(Waterborne an infectious disease of digestive system, such
as Cholera gets mixed with drinking water, and
Diseases) this water is used by a healthy person.
Sexual Act • Sexually transmitted Disease AIDS, Syphilis
(Sexually • Not spread by casual physical contact
Transmitted like handshakes, hugs etc.
Diseases)
Animals • These animals are called VECTORS or Malaria, Rabies
(Eg. Mosquitoes INTERMEDIARIES
and dogs) • Carry infecting agent from a sick
person to a potential host.

How does the AIDS virus spread from a healthy person to a diseased person?
1. Sexual Contact, 2. Blood to Blood contact with infected people, 3. Infected mother to her baby
during pregnancy, 4. Infected mother to her baby through breast feeding.

Why do the female mosquitoes of a species, suck blood from warm blooded animals like human
beings?
Because the female mosquitoes need highly nutritious food in the form of blood, in order to lay mature
eggs.

Manifestation of the Disease(In what ways does the disease affects a person)
How does the Organ/ tissue likely to Symptoms of the Examples of
microbe enter the be targeted by the Disease Diseases
body microorganism
Through air via Lungs Sneezing , coughing Tuberculosis
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 nose
Through Mouth Gut Lining or Liver Diarrhea etc. Typhoid,Jaundice
By Mosquitoes Liver, Red Blood Cells Shivering, fever, Malaria
Jaundice
By Mosquitoes Brain Headache, fever, Japanese
vomiting, fits, Encephalitis
unconsciousness
The above table shows some specific effects.

There are COMMON EFFECTS too.

The body’s immune system is activated in response to an infection. An active immune system will send
to the affected tissue to kill the pathogens. This causes inflammation.
Local effects of inflammation=swelling and pain
General Effects of inflammation=fever

Severity of the Disease depends on no. of microbes in the body depends on the immune
system

Symptom Directed Treatment that aims at killing the disease-

Treatment
ie to reduce the effects of the
disease.
Medicines to bring down
fever, to reduce pain and for
loose motions. Bed rest to
conserve energy.
Principle causing microbe
s Usually medicines are used to kill the
of microbes. The biochemical pathways used by
Treatme these microbes can be
disturbed/blocked.However , care should be
taken that these medicines should not effect
biochemical pathways important for our body.
Eg. Antibiotics, drugs that kill protozoans, anti
viral drugs etc.

Limitations to Principles of treatment for infectious diseases: 1) The body functions may
be damaged due to the disease and the patient may never recover completely. 2)
Treatment takes time and may cast a lot of money. 3) the infection may spread to other
people.
THAT IS WHY PREVENTION OF DISEASES IS BETTER THAN THEIR CURE

Principles of Prevention Two types of methods: a) General Methods

b) Methods Specific to a
disease

General Methods of prevention: Prevent exposure and availability of proper and

sufficient food to build a strong immune system.
How to prevent exposure:
Type of Disease/Microbe How to prevent exposure
AirBorne By providing living conditions that are not overcrowded.
WaterBorne By providing safe drinking water, treating water to kill
microbial contamination
Vector Borne Clean environment that does not allows mosquitoes to
breed-Public Hygiene

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Specific Methods of prevention-are disease specific
Immunisation ie Vaccination by which we can fool the immune system into developing
antibodies against a disease.By this method the body builds up ‘strength’ to fight
against a disease.

Questions:
1) Why is it difficult to make antiviral medicines?
2) What is HIV-AIDS? How does this disease spread from one person to another? List the symptoms of
this
disease. What are its general effects? How does a person suffering from AIDS die?
3) How was small pox eradicated?
4) Why are children living in many parts of India usually immune to Hepatitis –A?
5) Name five disease against which vaccines are available.
6) Comment on the following statement: ‘ Having a disease means preventing subsequent attacks of the
same”