1. The demonstration project that preceded the “Tuskeegee Study” was sharply reduced because of what historical event?
(a) The American Civil War
(b) World War I
(c) World War II
(d) The depression that followed the crash of 1929
(e) The civil rights acts of the 1960’s
2. The “Columbian Exchange” between the New World and the Old World began about
(a) 500 years ago
(b) 1000 years ago
(c) 1500 years ago
(d) 11,000 years ago
(e) 30,000 years ago
3. The Wassermann Test has been available for about
(a) 100 years
(b) 200 years
(c) 300 years
(d) 400 years
(e) 500 years
4. Pneumonic plague is transmitted by
(a) A bite of an infected flea
(b) Small droplets generated by a cough or sneeze
(c) Skin to skin contact with an infected lesion
(d) Fecal-oral contamination
(e) Contaminated water
5. The Social Hygiene movement was mostly concerned with eradicating
(a) Venereal diseases
(b) Poverty
(c) Hookworm
(d) Racism
(e) Unsanitary eating and cooking habits
6. When the complement system in your blood is activated, its normal job is to
(a) Increase the number of white blood cells (phagocytes)
(b) Increase the number of red blood cells
(c) Punch holes in cells
(d) Replicate nucleic acids in cells
(e) Prevent phagocytes from swallowing bacterial cells
7. Which disease(s) did the most damage to New World populations in the 1500’s?
(a) Syphilis and gonorrhea
(b) Tuberculosis and malaria
(c) The common cold
(d) Measles and smallpox
(e) Influenza
8. During the mid 1990’s Carleton Gajdusek was charged with and imprisoned for
(a) Income tax evasion
(b) Importing pathogens without proper licenses
(c) Fraud in spending the funds from his government grant
(d) Cruelty to animals
(e) Child molestation
9. The Tuskeegee Institute is located in what US state?
(a) Mississippi
(b) Georgia
(c) Alabama
(d) Arkansas
(e) Louisiana
10. The “Malthusian Deadlock” refers to
(a) An impasse in relations between church and state
(b) A bitter argument between followers of Pasteur and those of Koch
(c) A particularly severe type of quarantine imposed by some city-states during the black death
(d) A long-lasting civil war between two claimants to the Incan imperial throne
(e) An imbalance in the rate of growth of the human population and the supply of food to feed them
11. One of the first chemotheraputic agents to be used successfully was methylene blue. This was effective against the agent that causes
(a) Syphilis
(b) Bubonic Plague
(c) Tuberculosis
(d) Smallpox
(e) Malaria
12. Physicians have recently tracked a cluster of 11 CJD cases in rural Kentucky and have linked those cases to eating of which sort of meat
(a) Imported beef
(b) Domestic beef
(c) Wild deer
(d) Wild squirrels
(e) Farm-raised mink
13. The “Tuskeegee Study” was flawed in many ways, but it did manage to show that
(a) African-American males are as easily treated for syphilis as European-American males
(b) Untreated African-American males develop about the same symptoms from syphilis as European-American males
(c) African-American males are as easily treated for syphilis as African-American females
(d) Untreated African-American males develop about the same symptoms from syphilis as African-American females
(e) African-American males have a greater resistance to syphilis than European American males
14. The closest relative to the Treponema pallidum that causes syphilis is the organism that causes
(a) Lyme disease
(b) Bubonic plague
(c) Measles
(d) Yaws
(e) Smallpox
15. With regard to the risks of BSE to the population of Great Britain, as of the present time (March 2002) it appears that
(a) Both the government’s and Richard Rhodes’ predictions were too low
(b) Both the government’s and Richard Rhodes’ predictions were too high
(c) The government’s predictions were too high and Rhodes’ were too low
(d) The government’s predictions were too low and Rhodes’ were too high
(e) There never was any risk at all
16. The causative agent of bubonic plague is named after one of its discoverers, namely
(a) Koch
(b) Pasteur
(c) Kitasato
(d) Yersin
(e) Burgdorff
17. Bubonic plague is generally too damaging to humans for it to be maintained in the population for very long. However it is endemic in many parts of the world because it survives in a reservoir of what sort of animal
(a) Birds
(b) Pigs
(c) Snakes
(d) Rodents
(e) Mosquitoes
18. Those features of a bacterium that are essential for it to be an effective pathogen are known as
(a) Virulence factors
(b) Infectious agents
(c) Spores
(d) Mycolic acids
(e) Antibodies
19. Very soon after the initial epidemic of syphilis in Europe, an effective treatment was available. This involved the use of
(a) Arsenic
(b) Mercury
(c) Bismuth
(d) Gaiacum
(e) Quinine
20. The probability of dying from smallpox if your immune system has never seen it before is about
(a) 1%
(b) 30%
(c) 75%
(d) 90%
(e) 100%
21. At the present time (March 2002), the incidence of syphilis in the US is
(a) Greater than it was at the beginning of World War I
(b) About the same as at the beginning of World War I
(c) Less than it was at the beginning of World War I
(d) Virtually nonexistent (fewer than 50 cases per year)
22. There are three distinct stages of syphilis, each with its own symptoms. Sometimes, there is also a latent period during which there are no obvious symptoms. When does this latent period occur?
(a) Before primary stage
(b) Between primary and secondary stage
(c) Between secondary and tertiary stage
(d) After tertiary stage
(e) As an interruption in tertiary stage