ABSTRACT
Polio was a terrifying disease in the first half of the 20th century. It became epidemic in the US about 1916. Gastroenteritis is a general term describing an inflammation of the lining of the membrane of the stomach and intestines. It is a disease characterized by severe diarrhea with passage of mucus and blood. The causative agent is the bacteria Vibrio cholerae. It is transmitted by the fecal-to-oral route, usually by contaminated water. Anthrax is normally a disease of sheep, cattle, horses, goats, and swine. Louis Pasteur developed a vaccine for anthrax in 1881. Trypanosomiasis is the name given to several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic, flagellated protozoans of the genus Tryanosoma. Healthy individuals are hardly aware of fungal diseases, save for the occasional athlete’s foot and other mild dermal infections. Medical professionals in the endemic areas often refer to Valley Fever as an “orphan disease” because it rarely attracts attention outside the hardest-hit areas of California and Arizona.
