WHY DO WE FALL ILL

1. State any two conditions essential for good health.

Two conditions that are essential for good health are:

→ Proper nutrition and a blanced diet
→ Good Social environment.

2. State any two conditions essential for being free of disease.

Two conditions essential for being disease-free are:

→ Person should take balance diet.
→ Personal and community hygiene.

3. Are the answers to the above questions necessarily the same or different? Why?

To some extent they are the same, because if the conditions that are essential for good health are
maintained, then automatically the chances of getting a disease will be minimized. But at the
same time, we can say that they are different because being health or good health means
physical, mental and social well-being while being disease-free means not suffering from a
particular disease.

1. List any three reasons why you would think that you are sick and ought to see a doctor.
If only one of these symptoms were present, would you still go to the doctor? Why or why
not?

Common symptoms which indicate sickness are:

→ Headache
→ Cough
→ Dysentery

If only one of these symptoms is present, we usually do not visit a doctor. This is because such
symptoms do not have much effect on our general health and ability to work. However, if a
person is experiencing these symptoms for quite sometime, then he needs to visit a doctor for
proper treatment.

2. In which of the following case do you think the long-term effects on your health are likely
to be most unpleasant?
• If you get jaundice,
• if you get lice,
• If you get acne.

Jaundice is a disease that can cause long-term effects on our health. It is a chronic disease that
lasts for a long period of time. Jaundice does not spread rapidly, but it develops slowly over a
period of time.

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1. Why we are normally advised to take bland and nourishing food when we are sick?

When we are sick the normal body functions get disturbed. In such situation food that is easily
digestible and contains adequate nutrients are required for the speedy recovery. Thus bland and
nourishing food is given during sickness.

2. What are the different means by which infectious diseases are spread?

The different modes of transmission of infectious diseases are:

→ Through Air: Certain disease-causing micro-organisms are expelled in air by coughing,
sneezing, talking, etc. These micro-organisms can travel through dust particles or water droplets
in air to reach other people. For example, tuberculosis, pneumonia, etc. spread through air.
→ Through Water: Sometimes causal micro-organisms get mixed with drinking water and
spread water borne diseases. Cholera for example is water borne disease.
→ Through Sexual Contact: Sexual act between two people can lead to the transfer of diseases
such as syphilis, gonorrhoea, AIDS, etc.
→ Through Vectors: Certain diseases spread by animals called vectors. For example mosquitoes
spread malaria.

3. What precautions can you take in your school to reduce the incidence of infectious
diseases?

Precautions to reduce incidence of infectious diseases are:

→ Staying away from the infected person.
→ Covering mouth or nose while coughing or sneezing to prevent the spread of disease.
→ Drinking safe water.
→ Keeping the school environment clean to prevent multiplication vectors.

4. What is immunization?

Immunizationis defined as protection of the body from communicable diseases by administration

of some agent that mimics the microbe.

5. What are the immunization programmes available at the nearest health centre in your
locality? Which of these diseases are the major health problems in your area?

The immunization programmes available at the nearest health centre are DPT (Diphtheria,
Pertusis, and Tetanus), polio vaccine, hepatitis B, MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella),
jaundice, typhoid, etc.
Of all these diseases, jaundice and typhoid are major health problems.

2. A doctor/nurse/health-worker is exposed to more sick people than others in the

community. Find out how she/he avoids getting sick herself/himself.

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The following precautions must be taken by a doctor/ nurse/ health-worker:
→ Wearing a mask when in contact with a diseased person.
→ Keeping yourself covered while moving around an infected place.
→ Drinking safe water.
→ Eating healthy and nutritious food.
→ Ensuring proper cleanliness and personal hygiene.

4. A baby is not able to tell her/his caretakers that she/he is sick. What would help us to
find out
(a) that the baby is sick?
(b) what is the sickness?

(a) The baby is sick can be determined by his/her behavioural changes such as constant crying of
baby, improper intake of food, frequent mood changes, etc.

(b) The sickness is determined by symptoms or indications that can be seen in the baby. The
symptoms include vomiting, fever, loose motion, paleness in the body, etc.

5. Under which of the following conditions is a person most likely to fall sick?
(a) when she is recovering from malaria.
(b) when she has recovered from malaria and is taking care of someone suffering from
chicken-pox.
(c) when she is on a four-day fast after recovering from malaria and is taking care of
someone suffering from chicken-pox.

(c)A person is more likely to fall sick when she is on a four day fast after recovering from
malaria and is taking care of someone who is suffering from chicken pox. This is because she is
fasting during recovery, and her immune system is so weak that it is not able to protect its own
body from any foreign infection. If she is taking care of someone suffering from chicken pox,
then she has more chances of getting infected from chicken pox virus and will get sick again
with this disease.

6. Under which of the following conditions are you most likely to fall sick?
(a) when you are taking examinations.
(b) when you have travelled by bus and train for two days.
(c) when your friend is suffering from measles.
Why?

(c)You are more likely to fall sick when your friend is suffering from measles. This is because
measles is highly contagious and can easily spread through respiration i.e., through air. Thus, if
your friend is suffering from measles, stay away from him otherwise you might easily get
infected with the disease.

Q1. What does the word health mean?

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Ans: Health is therefore a state of being well enough to function well physically, mentally and socially.

Q2. How does the health of an organism depend upon the surroundings?

Ans: Human beings live in societies. Our social environment, therefore, is an important factor in our
individual health. We live in villages, towns or cities. In such places, even our physical environment is
decided by our social environment. If no agency is ensuring that garbage is collected and disposed then
there is a great deal of garbage thrown in streets, or if there is open drain water lying stagnant around
where we live, the possibility of poor health increases. Therefore , public cleanliness is important for
individual health.

Q3. What do we mean by “disease”?

Ans: Disease (disturbed ease) in other words, literally means being uncomfortable. Disease when we can
find a specific and particular cause for discomfort. a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal,
or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not
simply a direct result of physical injury. When there is a disease, either the functioning or the appearance
of one or more systems of the body will change for the worse. These changes give rise to symptoms and
signs of disease.

Q4. What are symptoms?

Ans: Symptoms of disease are the things we feel as being wrong. It is the obvious manifestation of a
disease. Headache, cough, loose motions, a wound with pus; these are all symptoms. These indicate that
there may be a disease.

Q5. How do you distinguish between acute and chronic diseases?

Ans: Some diseases last for only very short periods of time, and these are called acute diseases. Like
common cold lasts only a few days. Other ailments can last for a long time, even as much as a lifetime,
and are called chronic diseases. An example is the infection causing elephantiasis. Acute and chronic
diseases have different effects on our health. Any disease that causes poor functioning of some part of the
body will affect our general health as well. This is because all functions of the body are necessary for
general health. But an acute disease, which is over very soon, will not have time to cause major effects on
general health, while a chronic disease will do so.

Q6. What are the various causes of diseases?

Ans: Disease belong to two distinct types. One group of causes is the infectious agents, mostly microbes
or micro-organisms. Diseases where microbes are the immediate causes are called infectious diseases.
This is because the microbes can spread in the community, and the diseases they cause will spread with

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them. On the other hand, there are also diseases that are not caused by infectious agents. Their causes
vary, but they are not external causes like microbes that can spread in the community. Instead, these are
mostly internal, non infectious causes.

Q7. Name some common infectious diseases

Ans: Common examples of diseases caused by viruses are the common cold, influenza, dengue fever and
AIDS. Diseases like typhoid fever, cholera, tuberculosis and anthrax are caused by bacteria. Many
common skin infections are caused by different kinds of fungi. Protozoan microbes cause many familiar
diseases, such as malaria and kalaazar.

Q8. Explain the effect of antibiotic penicillin on bacterial cells.

Ans: All bacteria are closely related to each other. This means that many important life processes are
similar in the bacteria group. As a result, drugs that block one of these life processes in one member of
the group is likely to be effective against many other members of the group. Antibiotics commonly block
biochemical pathways important for bacteria. Many bacteria, for example, make a cell-wall to protect
them. The antibiotic penicillin blocks the bacterial processes that build the cell wall. As a result, the
growing bacteria become unable to make cell-walls, and die easily.

Q9. Why are human cells not affected by penicillin?

Ans: Human cells don’t make a cell-wall anyway, so penicillin cannot have such an effect on us.
Penicillin will have this effect on any bacteria that use such processes for making cell-walls.

Q10.. Why are antibiotics ineffective against viruses?

Ans: Viruses have very few biochemical pathways of their own, and that is the reason why antibiotics do
not work against viral infections. If we have a common cold, taking antibiotics does not reduce the
severity or the duration of the disease. However, if we also get a bacterial infection along with the viral
cold, taking antibiotics will help. Even then, the antibiotic will work only against the bacterial part of the
infection, not the viral infection.

Q 11. How do communicable or infectious diseases spread?

Ans: Many microbial agents can commonly move from an affected person to someone else in a variety of
ways. In other words, they can be communicated, and so are also called communicable diseases. Such
disease-causing microbes can spread through the air. This occurs through the little droplets thrown out by
an infected person who sneezes or coughs. Someone standing close by can breathe in these microbes.

Q 12.How does AIDS spread?

An: Other than the sexual contact, the AIDS virus can also spread through blood-to-blood contact with
infected people or from an infected mother to her baby, by sharing of same syringe and having

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unprotected sex.

Q13. The signs and symptoms of a disease depend upon the tissue or organ targeted. Explain.

Ans: The signs and symptoms of a disease will depend on the tissue or organ which the microbe targets.
If the lungs are the targets, then symptoms will be cough and breathlessness. If the liver is targeted, there
will be jaundice. If the brain is the target, we will observe headaches, vomiting, fits or unconsciousness.

Q14. What feature of our body protects us from catching infectious diseases?

Ans: The immune system of our body is normally fighting off microbes. We have cells that specialise in
killing infecting microbes. These cells go into action each time infecting microbes enter the body. If they
are successful, we do not actually come down with any disease. The immune cells manage to kill off the
infection long before it assumes major proportions.

Q15. Describe the principle behind vaccination.

Ans: By providing vaccination, we can .fool the immune system into developing a memory for a
particular infection by putting something, that mimics the microbe we want to vaccinate against, into the
body. This does not actually cause the disease but this would prevent any subsequent exposure to the
infecting microbe from turning into actual disease.

Q16. Name some diseases for which vaccines are available.

Ans: Many such vaccines are now available for preventing a whole range of infectious diseases, and
provide a disease-specific means of prevention. There are vaccines against tetanus, diphtheria, whooping
cough, measles, polio and many others.

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