By Thoburn F. Thompson

The Mongol Empire was destroyed by the Plague. Jack Weatherford makes this argument in his book, &uot;Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.&uot; About 750 years ago, the Mongol Empire was the dominant military, mercantile, artistic, administrative and dynamic world power. For 150 years, Genghis Khan and his family established an empire that reached from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean and from Siberia to Persia and Poland.

This incredible dynasty was built on planning for conquest. A mobile army with a nomadic heritage needed forage. They found it or planted it. They set up administrative zones. Silks and porcelains from China reached Europe, textiles and agricultural products were exchanged across thousands of miles. Damascus steel, Chinese explosive missiles and paper currency moved over borders.

Medicines were exchanged. Robes imported from the Orient influenced Western art.

Diverse religious beliefs were accepted in the Empire. Even warfare changed from fixed hand-to-hand battle, to quick hit-and-run ambushes.

The Mongol Empire weakened in Xanadu and the Plague started in 1332, perhaps in South China. It moved across China, killing 65,000,000 in 40 years.

Commerce slowed, fear gripped urban centers from China to Europe.

Animals and travelers by sea and land animals carried infected fleas across the steppes to Europe and to Iceland and Greenland. At least 25,000,000 Europeans died.

Urban crowded areas suffered the most. Administrative connections and religious communities lost cohesion.

Blame was placed on Jews and Jews were burned by the thousands in France and Germany.

Muslims were similarly persecuted in Spain. The Plague provides a historic example of how disease can disrupt the social and commercial organization of entire continents.

From 1918 to 1920, the swine influenza circled the earth three times and took more than 21,000,000 lives. In the USA, the cost was 600,000 lives and $100,000,000,000 in medical care and lost productivity. Our parents and grandparents can remember deaths of family and neighbors.

Now HIV/AIDS, drug resistant Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Ebola virus, the West Nile Virus, cholera and other similar diseases and agents represent potential pandemics.

Truly we are connected globally.

No place is too remote to be visited these days. The mountains and the jungles, the rivers and the ocean depths are explored.

In a similar sense, there is no place to hide and no way to go it alone.

We are a global community and when the public health falls apart, the community is torn apart &045; we need to work together in prevention and research and control.

Laurie Garrett states, in Betrayal of Trust: the Breakdown of Global Public Health, &uot;public health is a negative &045;when it is at its best, nothing happens:

there are no epidemics, food and water are safe to consume&uot; and the public is content. But we are in an unappreciated crisis. Public health systems are falling apart. Poverty, wars for drugs, gold, arms, oil, tribal control, and unsafe water contribute to this real crisis. What can it mean for us?

It means we are part of the world and that prevention and investment in the future is vitally important to us. We cannot become a &uot;walled fortress&uot; to keep back the pressure from another place. We must share the danger, but prepare and confront the changing face of epidemic infections.

It is not enough to declare ourselves in favor of campaigns to combat HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, pass legislation, get authorization &045; and then not completely fund the authorized dollars. One out of 12 births in West Africa results in a maternal death; 13 million children in Africa have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Tuberculosis, the resistant kind, is on the increase in the Russian Federation and drug resistant Malaria kills millions each year in the tropics. The situation can be improved, epidemics can be averted and lives saved for a productive community.

Collaboration, money and the will to succeed must be a priority in our national agenda.

It is in our national interest after all.

(Thoburn F. Thompson of Albert Lea iis a retired physican.)