Cure disease and immunity

The discussion of plague gave me an idea … if you cure a disease
“artificially” (ie., by a miracle like /cure disease/), would the body
still develop an immunity to the disease? I don’t know enough about
immunology to even guess. Is it possible that /cure disease/ might be
ineffective during an epidemic? I’m thinking along these lines: many
people develop symptoms; you cure the worst cases fist. Before you can
cure everyone, the people you’ve already cured have gotten re-infected.
Unless you can cure everyone at once (and deal with the transmission
agents like contaminated food and water or plague rats), all you’re
going to get are very, very busy clerics.

This also leads to another question: if miracles don’t stop the plague,
then what does that say about the gods’ attitude toward disease?

If the disease has progressed to the point that the victim is showing
symptoms (which in most cases doesn’t take very long), then they would
certainly have enough of an immune response by that point to develop
immunity. It does not require someone suffer through the ‘full length’
of a disease to develop that.

I think a cure disease should protect a person from re-aquiring disease for
the duration of the plague, otherwise it’s not much of a “miracle.” ( BTW:
there is no reason why disease must be based in modern knowledge. THroughout
most of history people thaought disease was caused by bad air, immoral
behaviour or things like an imbalance of bodily humors. A fantasy world need
not use scientific basis for disease. )

That said… if you really have an epedemic springing up, and the cause is
not known, curing people won’t stop the really nasty ones. Bugs tend to
start out very virulent. We have no immunity, we die fast. Bugs that are
easy to spread and kill people fast are the plagues we fear. Over time,
diseases evolve not to kill thier hosts, at least not before they can
spread.

Imagine a city of 100,000 - 500,000 people. Teaming warrens of the poor,
families crowded into single rooms. Imagine 200 or more new cases a day of a
disease ( like cholera ) that kills in 24-36 hours. How are the clerics
going to find and treat all those people before they die? ANd before they
infect others? Trust me, they will be busy.

The coutryside is no better, since you are liable to have fewer clerics and
much farther to travel. One cleric hears of an outbreak of disease in 2
villages, both a days travel away…in opposite directions.

No … cure disease is not a plague ender. It is great for the individual
“everyday” illnesses of ‘medieval’ life… but in a true plague, a “curse of
the gods” they would be overwhelmed as would modern medicine. We succeed by
using vaccination, sanitation and high living standards to stop plagues from
starting in the first place… but once the disease gets a toe hold, there
isn’t much we can do about it.

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