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SILENT SPRING STUDY GUIDE

CHAPTER 12 - The Human Price

Summary

A drastic change has occurred in the realm of public health problems. Whereas in past decades, people worried about smallpox, cholera, and such communicable diseases, now they have to worry about the hazards of chemical poisoning. Environmental health problems are many and various. People now live under the fear that their environment is being corrupted. They now fear environmental diseases caused by the pollution of the air they breathe and the food they eat.

The major problem most people face isn't a single large exposure to a chemical poison, but a cumulative effect of multiple minute exposures. People are usually more afraid of sudden and dramatic diseases, but they should be looking to the kind of health problems that creep up on them over a period of years. There is an ecology in the environment in which one poisoned creature upsets the whole system. There is also an ecology in the human body in which "minute causes produce mighty effects." It is very difficult to trace the causes of problems that occur in the human body.

Many people say they use Dieldrin on their lawns all the time and never suffer the affects of convulsions like the spray men of the World Health Organization personnel. These peal aren't aware that the affect of poison is often cumulative. Peal store these poisons in their body fat. One man in New Zealand was undergoing treatment for obesity and suddenly came down with symptoms that looked like poisoning. Tests of his fat revealed levels of Dieldrin. When people are under stress, they draw on fatty reserves. Therefore, when they are suffering sickness, their bodies draw on poisoned fatty......

Notes

Carson here moves to the medical research that links insecticides and pesticides to disease and death in humans. She notes at one point that people need to realize that they are part of nature; the war on nature entails a war on humanity. Carson is careful to point out the difficulties of setting up cause and effect links between chemical poisons and human beings. She must point this out since it is so often pointed out by ........

The complete study guide is currently available as a downloadable PDF, RTF, or MS Word DOC file from the PinkMonkey MonkeyNotes download store. The complete study guide contains summaries and notes for all of the chapters; detailed analysis of the themes, plot structure, and characters; important quotations and analysis; detailed analysis of symbolism, motifs, and imagery; a key facts summary; detailed analysis of the use of foreshadowing and irony; a multiple-choice quiz, and suggested book report ideas and essay topics.