Thursday, April 9, 2009

Hmm.. what to write about?

Well there is always:
1. Study an Infectious Disease: Tuberculosis, Malaria, Tetanus...
Okay, so I looked up Tuberculosis on Wikipedia and it basically said that is has been around 18,000 years before present. Im guessing the problem with this is that when I begin to research the origination the facts will not be all the accurate. Or should I go with a different approach and research how the disease is formed? 

2. Oh.. Dentistry. I could study when the first forms of dentistry was being practiced. 
Although now that I think about it... Im guessing the beginning of dentistry was probably painful and awful. Im sure dentists ( if they even were called that) did not use pain killers when removing cavities or pulling out teeth. And just think of the devices they might have used to remove those cavities and pull those teeth. Ouch!!

3. And I could study the development of Birth Control. Or study how it works? Not sure which one to go with. Anyways, the bad side is that it may be too recent meaning not much history to research. Also, recently there are so many types of birth control, so I may have to just pick one specific type and then study the history on that.  On the other hand, since it is recent it will be easy to find the first birth control that was available.

3 comments:

  1. K:

    Interesting stuff here! I really enjoy numbers 1 and 3, as they allow for a bit more leeway in terms of which perspectives you approach the issue from.

    For infectious diseases, I would focus on one, or, at least, I would focus on one way of transmitting these diseases. So, what role did the transcontinental railroad play in transmitting disease across the U.S.?

    For Birth Control, you could very much focus on the social reasons why birth controlled was advocated early on. This could be very interesting, as you could find yourself researching some methods of birth control (and their reasoning) that seem ridiculous to us nowadays, as I imagine very very crude forms of birth control have been around for a long, long time.

    #2 might be good, as well: do crude forms of dentistry tell us that people had higher tolerance for pain many years ago?

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  2. Skool Blogger:
    I like idea 1 there is a vast amout of data on infectious diseases. Also while reading idea 1, a book that I read came to mind, called Plague by Wendy Orent. This book specifically talks about the pneumonic and bubonic plague, and how it spread and the possible use for it as a biological weapon. Like j said in his comment on the transcontinental railroad, you can also link the conquests of Ghangis Kong and the spread of the plague.

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  3. The first idea is great. You may want to think about narrowing the focus of your paper, like showing how a specific disease has affected world populations or the research toward developing a cure.

    I feel the same way about the other two ideas. You may want to focus your ideas some, like maybe a study of ancient Chinese dental techniques of the history of the root canal. Or for birth control, a study of the cultural difficulties of promoting safe sex and contraception.

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