Re: GURPS epidemiology help sought
I started working on a disease list, once, mostly to use in post-apocalyptic settings. Never had time to finish it. It's a big job- lot's of time spent with the Merck Manual. A list (with a preponderance of food- and water-born examples):
Amoebic Dysentery
Anthrax (Bio-Tech p.113)
Popular biological weapon
Botulinum Toxin (Bio-Tech p.113)
Botulism
This disease is a food poisoning caused when spores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum are allowed to germinate in anaerobic conditions- classically, in a can or other airtight sealed food container that has not been properly sterilized or has had its integrity somehow breached.
Bubonic Plague (Bio-Tech p.113)
Cholera (Reign of Steel: Will to Live p.48)
Campylobacter Food Poisoning
This bacterium is found in animal (including human) feces, and is currently the most common pathogen causing bacterial food poisoning in the world, comprising over 75% of such infections.
Clostridial Food Poisoning
Though caused by the same organism responsible for gas gangrene this is typically a mild form of food poisoning.
Cryptosporiasis
Dengue Fever
Diptheria
Ebola (?)
And Marburg?
Enterohemorrhagic E. coli Food Poisoning
Giardiasis
Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease
Hantavirus
North America's own cute hemorrhagic fever.
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Hepatitis C
Influenza (Bio-Tech p.113)
Leprosy
Listeriosis
Malaria
Measles
Mumps
Sterility?
Polio
Q Fever
Popular biological weapon
Rabies
Salmonellosis
Shigellosis
A kind of dysentery,
Smallpox
Another popular biological weapon- some intensely terrifying variants were made by the Soviets, including one that doesn't cause pox and thus is difficult to diagnose clinically.
Spongiform Encephalopathies
Mad Cow (aka variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob) and everyone's favorite: Kuru! While fascinating, I don't see much point in stats for Fatal Familial Insomnia. That's (thank the Maker) not transmissible and is covered by the Terminal Illness disadvantage...
Spotted Fevers
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Mediterranean Spotted Fever, Queensland Tick Typhus (all spread by ticks) or Scrub Typhus (spread by “chigger” mites).
Tuberculosis
Tularemia (Bio-Tech p.113)
Typhoid
Typhus
Viral Gastroenteritis
meant to represent a variety of viral infections causing diarrhea and/or vomiting which are spread by fecal-oral contamination of food or, more commonly, water. Such viral infections are much more common than bacterial infections. Possible pathogens include noroviruses, rotaviruses, enteroviruses, etc. These tend to be annoying but not life-threatening infections, except to the very young, very old, or infirm.
Yellow Fever
Of course, you could just subsume all of those bacterial food poisonings under one heading and just randomize the severity somehow to represent different pathogens. Botulism would still need it's own entry, though. You could randomize the dysenteries, too... Damn, now you've got me interested in this again. But if you're publishing a Pyramid article, why would I bother? :)
Last edited by acrosome; 06-17-2015 at 07:17 PM.
|