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What is life?
Before we truly understand disease I think that it is imperative to understand what life is. What does it
truly mean to be alive? This seems like it should be common sense but as you are teaching students about
disease this concept is paramount in them attaining a through understanding.
There are six characteristics, which define life: evolve over generations, reproduce, respond to stimuli, take in
materials, release materials, and grow. All living things must have each of these six characteristics, if one
characteristic is missing the object is nonliving. If something is living it is known as biotic, if something is
nonliving it is known as abiotic. It is also important to define the difference between nonliving and dead.
Something that is dead, was once living, at one point it possessed all of the characteristics of life, for example a
person that has passed away. Contrariwise, something that is nonliving, never possessed all of the six
characteristics, for example a chair.
What is disease?
“There is no mortal whom sorrow and disease do not touch” (Euripides)
Disease is something, which causes harm to biotic things. Nonliving things are not affected by disease.
Disease is caused by many things: protists, bacteria, viruses, cellular mutations, parasites, and genetics.
Disease is unable to harm abiotic things because; it must have a biotic host in order to live. Diseases are
parasitic in nature, meaning that they must have a host to live in. While some diseases can live outside of a
host’s body for days (like Hepatitis B) others will die within minutes outside of a host (like HIV). The types of
diseases and treatment options have changed over time; however, the devastating effects that they contain have
remained hauntingly the same.

Causes of Disease
The Kingdom Protista
From the kingdom Protista comes a host of diseases. The Kingdom Protista (commonly called protists)
are unicellular (single-celled) eukaryotic (contain a nucleus) microscopic critters. Protists are found in many
different places naturally including the human body, oceans, rivers, marshes, lakes, fish tanks, snow, and mud.
Protists reproduce through a process known as binary fission. In this process the single celled protist divides in
half creating an exact copy of itself, this process does not take a long time to occur. It is for this reason that
protists are so prolific. They will continue to reproduce through binary fission as long as their environments
will sustain them.
Protists have different methods of modality. Some protists move using a pseudopodia, or false foot. This false
foot is an extension of the protists body, which it reaches out whenever it would like to move, and then blobs its
body into the pseudopodia. Other protists move using eyelash like hairs known as cilia. The cilia act as oars on
a boat moving the protist through its environment. Other protists move using flagella, which are tail like
structures extending from the protist’s body.
Not all protist cause disease. Some protists have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts. In other
words, the protist lives off of another creature (its host) but in so doing helps the other creature. For example
there are protists that exist in our digestive system. These protists help us digest appropriately and do not cause
harm. Other protists are free living and have no need for a host to keep them alive.
The real concern comes in with parasitic protists. These protists must live off of a host and in so doing
harm that host, causing disease. There are several common protists caused diseases. Cryptosporidium, Giardia
lamblia, Entoamoeba histolytica, Trypanosome, Leishmanisasis, and Plasmodium falciparum.
Cryptosporidium is a disease that causes severe diarrhea. A major outbreak of this disease happened in
1993 in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Cryptosporidium invaded the drinking water supply. At this time Milwaukee
seen as a forerunner in its water purification technique. Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with one
employee following correct procedures. This slight mistake allowed Cryptosporidium to run ramped and to

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invade the Milwaukee drinking water. Not even Clorox bleach could stop the powerful cryptosporidium. Over
the course of this catastrophe, “four hundred thousand Milwaukee residents came down with cryptosporidiosis;
forty-four hundred were hospitalized.”(Zimmerman and Zimmerman, 2003).
Giardia Lamblia is a protist caused disease that was discovered by Antoine van Leeuwenhoek, father of
the modern microscope, when he was examining his feces. Giardia is commonly passed on when people do not
was their hands after using the bathroom or when changing diapers. While Giardia is not very common in the
US, there are occurrences especially among day care providers.
Entoamoeba histolytica is a protist commonly known as an amoeba. This disease is commonly called
amoebic dysentery. It causes severe cramping, diarrhea, and bleeding. It is commonly transferred from dirty
eating conditions due to the dirty water often containing sewage remains.

Vectors – the carrier of a disease, it passes the disease from one host to another.

The protist known as the Trypanosome causes a devastating disease commonly known as African
Sleeping Sickness. This disease is transferred through a bite from its vector, the tsetse fly. This disease is
incurable and deadly. It not only effects humans but also livestock. It is quite common in Africa.
Leishmanisasis is a disease carried by a sand fly. This disease is imperative to catch early as if left
untreated death is imminent. However, the treatment for this disease is not much better than the disease itself.
The treatment is highly toxic. If the patient has a suppressed immune system they will almost surely die.
Currently there is not an approved vaccination on the market, however one is quickly being developed.
Plasmodium falciparum is the protist that causes the disease malaria “it might well kill more humans
than any other pathogen . . . save perhaps the bacillus of tuberculosis or the AIDS virus”(Zimmerman and
Zimmerman, 2003). The female Anopheles mosquito is the vector of malaria. Currently there are preventative
medicines, which often have severe side effects including but not limited to psychosis. There is also a vaccine
in development and actually in use in Columbia. The vaccine has not yet been proven effective so is not in
widespread use.

The Kingdom Monera

The Kingdom Monera (commonly called bacteria) are unicellular (single-celled) prokaryotic (do not
contain a nucleus) microscopic critters. While these critters are unbelievably simple in makeup, they are an
integral part of our lives. While protists are usually ubiquitous in nature, bacteria are found virtually
everywhere including places where there are no other living things like hot geysers. In the scientific community
the Kingdom Monera is often broken up into two other groups. Remember science is constantly changing; we
are often making new discoveries which impact our beliefs greatly. Bacteria are the oldest form of life and
many scientist believe that through cellular mutations, all life arose. Like protists, bacteria are also very prolific
and reproduce through binary fission.
Bacteria are almost exclusively limited to depending on hosts in order to move. Bacteria do come in
many shapes and sizes. The type of bacteria is often distinguished by the scientific name. For example any
type of bacteria that ends with coccus shows that it has a coccus shape. Bacteria can also take many different
forms when it interacts with a host, and a slight change in bacteria can cause a serious problem.
While virtually every type of bacterial disease currently has a cure/ treatment, some bacteria are
developing resistance to the treatments. There are millions of types of bacteria that cause disease. Some types
of bacteria that cause disease are; Bacillus anthracis, Clostidium botulinum, and Streptococcus.
The common name for the bacteria Bacillus anthracis is anthrax. Anthrax is an example of bacteria that
can take various forms. There are inhalation, gastrointestinal, and cutaneous anthrax. This bacteria is often
thought of as a biological weapon and has indeed been used in that capacity in the last few years. The treatment
for anthrax is cyiprhro. There is also a vaccine that is available as a preventative measure. Anthrax affects the
body in a unique way. It actually produces a triad of toxins in the body. One extremely unique characteristic is
that anthrax is able to infect and live in macrophage white blood cells. These cells typically are the ones that
destroy and eliminate disease-causing bacteria. Anthrax is able to be eaten by these macrophage cells and still
survive the whole while producing toxins that are the unsuspecting macrophage cell delivers to the rest of the
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body. While anthrax is curable, it is very difficult to diagnose. Symptoms are often flu like and by the time the
progress to a point of noticeable danger it is often too late.
Another type of devastating bacteria is Clostidium botulinum. This is commonly know as botulism.
This disease is a very serious strain of food poisoning. It occurs only in the absence of oxygen so often occurs
in unsanitary food preparation environments. This disease often affects infants that are eating a combination of
breast milk and honey. This disease causes severe muscle weakness and even paralysis. Ironically it is now
also one of the leading beauty treatments. It is hard to believe that people are so desperate to be wrinkle free
that they would inject a toxin into themselves.
How many of us and our students have not had strep throat? Not many. Strep throat is caused by a
bacteria called streptococcus. This bacteria can be easily treated with antibiotic however, there are multiple
strands that affect people in different ways. Have you ever heard of the flesh-eating bacteria? That is a strand
of streptococcus. In fact, strep A causes many different diseases from a common sore throat to the skin
infection impetigo, to flesh eating bacteria. Once exposed to strep A your reaction largely depends on your
immune system.

Viruses
“The survival of humanity is not preordained… The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the
planet is the virus”(A Dancing Matrix, Marantz Henig)
We are now entering what I call the great virus debate. This is where the knowledge about abiotic
versus biotic organisms will come in handy. Viruses have many characteristics of living things however they
are not officially living; in fact, they do not even contain cells. Some scientist will refer to viruses as being
alive however this is scientifically incorrect. If you were to classify living and nonliving things, viruses should
fall somewhere in a gray area in between living and nonliving.
Viruses are extremely small, much smaller than a bacteria. Viruses and bacteria are completely
unrelated. It is difficult to see a virus in fact; you must use a very sophisticated microscope to obtain images of
a virus. There are two basic parts of a virus, nucleic acid core and a protein coat surrounding it.
While it is easy to think of viruses as something that easily invade our cells, that is in essence a
misnomer. In fact, viruses can only infect a specific cell about one out of ever one thousand times. This is
because a virus must fit exactly into the receptor sites on the cells membrane. If the shape of the virus and the
shape of the receptor are even a little bit off, the virus is unable to infect the cell. That is why we don’t typically
see viruses jumping across species unless they mutate. For example, the tobacco Mosaic virus occurs in the
tobacco plant and can be absolutely devastating to a crop of tobacco, however, the same virus cannot harm me.
Viruses are always parasitic.
While bacteria and protists are treatable, viruses are not. There are preventative vaccines for some
viruses, however not all. Antibiotics are not affective in treating viruses. Viruses can differ greatly in potency.
Some viruses are relatively minor for people with healthy immune systems like influenza, while others are
almost certainly devastating to even the healthiest person, Ebola. Some viruses that I will be talking about are
HIV/AIDS, Ebola, and Smallpox each of these viruses is extremely devastating.
HIV/AIDS is a relatively new virus in the grand scheme of things. This virus is completely preventable
yet it affects millions of people. When this disease was discovered, it seemed to stop the medical community in
their tracks. Dr. Anthony Fauci seems to have the same sentiments when he says “Every once in a while a new
disease will emerge and knock the socks off the human population. It happened with HIV/AIDS, and it can
happen again.” HIV or human immunodeficiency virus progresses into AIDS acquired immunodeficiency
syndrome. HIV/AIDS is a blood borne pathogen, meaning that it is transferred through contact with bodily
fluids. There is no cure for this virus. HIV can go undetected in the human body for years, which makes it
extremely easy to blindly transmit if engaging in risky behaviors. .
One of the most devastating viral diseases that I have ever heard of is Ebola. Ebola is a disease that
kills 90% of the people that it infects. It is an ugly disease, which causes bleeding from every orifice and
eventually dissolves all of your internal organs. This disease acts quickly and is painful. It spreads very quickly
as well and is able to wipeout entire villages very quickly. There is no vaccine or cure for this disease.
Infection is almost certainly a death sentence. The last outbreak of this disease was in Zaire Africa. If Ebola
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came to the US it would be catastrophic. Ebola is classified as a level four virus by the CDC and can only be
handled under extreme precautions.
Small pox is a virus that was once very prevalent and is now know as eradicated. While smallpox is
only supposed to be contained in two freezers one in the US and the other in Russia, there is speculation that it
may be contained in various other places in the world. Documentation of the virus’s devastation, eradication,
and subsequent controversy is very well laid out in Richard Preston’s book The Demon in the Freezer .
This virus is thought by many scientists to be much more devastating than even Ebola. The reasoning
behind this is a result of the way that smallpox is spread. The virus is easily able to jump from person to person,
which makes it extremely prolific.

Treatments
Antibiotics
Once again remembering the concept of abiotic versus biotic we can talk about antibiotics. Antibiotics
by definition can only attack things that are biotic or living. Therefore, antibiotics can fight bacteria and
protists. Since a virus is nonliving, an antibiotic is ineffective. That is why when you go to the doctor with the
flu, he or she does not prescribe an antibiotic, instead the doctor may give you a medicine that masks the
symptoms but does not attack the virus. An antibiotic looks for the bacteria or protist that it can attack, and
breaks it down so that it is unable to reproduce. While antibiotics look and in fact in some cases work as
wonder drugs, there are major problems with them. “Deaths from infectious diseases are up 58 percent since
1980. Yet there are more antibiotics on the market today than there have ever been.”(Zimmerman and
Zimmerman, 2003)
How cans this happen? It seems like with all of the advances in medicine, we should win the fight
against disease without a problem. However this isn’t the case at all. Doctors are all too often misdiagnosing
patients or over prescribing antibiotics and patients are often not taking the full dose of their antibiotics. While
this doesn’t seem like a big deal, it is indeed a huge problem on a global level. Bacterium can extremely
quickly evolve, so if they are overexposed to an antibiotic they will evolve to have a resistance to that antibiotic.
Remember Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest? That is what this is ten fold. The dangerous use of
antibiotics is not only a problem with doctors over prescribing but also farmers drugging their livestock.

Vaccines
While biotic things are treatable with antibiotics for the most part, there are some preventative things
that you can do about viruses as well. An interesting thing about viruses is that once your body has the virus, it
builds up an immunity, causing it to be impossible to get the exact strain of the virus again. Therefore scientist
figured out (not always in the most ethical ways I might add) that if you inject a person with a very low
potency of a virus, part of a virus, or with an extremely close virus they then become immune. While again this
seems like a wonder drug, there are some very real problems that occur with the use of vaccines. First, your
body could react to the vaccine and you could actually contract the virus. This is especially possible if your
immune system is compromised in any way. Second, viruses are evolving, by natural means or with the help of
scientist, so quickly that you can be vaccinated for a virus like smallpox yet get a different strain of smallpox.
This is evident every fall/winter time when we hear of people who receive the flu vaccine, getting sick from the
flu.

Heading
Disease Guided Reading (Quiz Grade)

Student Reading Guide - complete with reading

1. What are the six characteristics, which define life: ______________
_________________________________________________________
________________________________________
2. If one characteristic is missing the object is__________________.
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3. If something is living it is known as___________, if something is nonliving it is known
as_____________.
4. Something that is dead,_________________________.
5. Define the characteristics of fire:

Is fire biotic or abiotic?(answer not in article) Explain your choice in a complete sentence.

6. Disease is something,______________________________________.
7. Disease is caused by many things: _________________________________________________
8. Disease is unable to harm _________ things because; __________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________.
9. Diseases are____________________, meaning that___________________________________
____________________________________________________.
10. While some diseases can live outside of a host’s body for _________(like___________________)
others will die within _______________ outside of a host (like______________).
11. The ______________________________________have changed over time; the
________________________________ that they contain have remained hauntingly the same.
12. From the kingdom _____________________ comes a host of diseases.
13. Protists are found in many different places naturally including the
____________________________________________________________________________.
14. Why are protists so prolific? ________________________________
_________________________________________________________.
15. Some protists move using a________________, or false foot.
16. Other protists move using eyelash like hairs known as______________.
17. Other protists move using______________, which are tail like structures.
18. Some protists have a ____________________relationship with their hosts. In other words, the protist
lives off of another creature (its host) ___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
19. Protists that exist in our ______________________help us digest appropriately and
________________cause harm.
20. _________________ _______________must live off of a ___________ and in so doing harm that host,
causing disease.
21. Cryptosporidium is a disease that causes____________ _____________. A major outbreak of this
disease happened in __________ in Milwaukee Wisconsin.
22. Giardia is commonly passed on_________________________________
_______________________________________________________.
23. Amoebic__________________. It causes severe cramping, diarrhea, and bleeding. It is commonly
transferred from_________________________
__________________________________________________________.
24. African Sleeping Sickness is a disease is transferred through a bite from its ___________________,
the tsetse fly. This disease is _________________ and deadly.
25. Vector –__________________________________________________
____________________________________________________.
26. The female Anopheles ___________________is the vector of__________________.
27. The Kingdom ____________________ (commonly called_____________) are unicellular (single-
celled) prokaryotic (do not contain a ____________) microscopic critters.
28. Bacteria are found ______________________________including places where there are
_____________________________like hot geysers.
29. . Bacteria are the _________________________life and many scientist believe that all life arose from
bacteria.
30. While virtually every type of bacterial disease currently has a cure/ treatment, some bacteria are
developing ___________________to the treatments.
31. The common name for the bacteria Bacillus anthracis is______________.
32. Anthrax is a bacteria is often thought of as a_____________ __________.

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33. One extremely unique characteristic is that anthrax is able to infect and live in
macrophage____________ ___________ ________. These cells typically are the ones that
_____________________________________________________________________________

34. Symptoms of anthrax ______________________________ and by the time the progress to a point of
noticeable danger it is often too late.
35. _____________________ is a very serious strain of food poisoning.
36. Botulism occurs only in the _______________________________so often occurs
_________________________________________ environments.
37. _______________________________is caused by a bacteria called streptococcus and can be easily
treated with____________________.
38. Once exposed to strep A your reaction largely depends on your
_______________________________________________.
39. Viruses have many characteristics of living things however they are not officially living; in fact,
they_________________________________.
40. If you were to classify living and nonliving things, viruses should fall
______________________________________________________________________________.
41. Viruses are_________________________, much smaller than a bacteria.
42. Why don’t we typically see viruses jumping across species unless they mutate?
______________________________________________________________________________
43. Viruses are always____________________.
44. While bacteria and protists are_________________, viruses are not.
45. Antibiotics are ____________ affective in treating viruses.
46. Viruses can differ greatly in________________.
47. HIV or ____________________________________________ into AIDS
____________________________________________.
48. HIV/AIDS is a blood borne pathogen, meaning that it is_____________
____________________________________________________.
49. _____________________is a virus that was once very prevalent and is now know as eradicated.
50. The smallpox virus is easily____________________________________, which makes it extremely
prolific.
51. An antibiotic looks for the bacteria or protist that it can attack, and breaks it down so
that_________________________________________.
52. Bacterium can _________________ extremely quickly, so if they are overexposed to an antibiotic they
will _______________ .
53. The dangerous use of antibiotics is not only a problem with doctors _________________________but
also___________________________.
54. Once your body has a particular virus, it builds up an________________, causing it to be impossible to
get________________________________.