Disinfecting the Germ Theory
Watching television, you’d think we lived at bay, in total jeopardy,
surrounded on all sides by human-seeking germs, shielded against
infection and death only by a chemical technology which enables us
to keep killing them off. We are instructed to spray disinfectants
everywhere, into the air of our bedrooms and kitchens and with
special energy into bathrooms, since it is our very own germs that
seem the worst kind. We explode clouds of aerosol, mixed for good
luck with deodorants, into our noses, mouths, underarms, privileged
crannies—even into the intimate insides of our telephones. We apply
potent antibiotics to minor scratches and seal them with plastic.
Plastic is the new protector; we wrap the already plastic tumblers of
hotels in more plastic, and seal the toilet seats like state secrets after
irradiating them with ultraviolet light. We live in a world where the
microbes are always trying to get at us, to tear us from cell to cell, and
we only stay alive and whole through diligence and fear.
We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized
kind of demonology, in which bacteria are the most visible and centrally
placed of our adversaries. We assume that they must somehow relish what
they do. They come after us for profit, and there are so many of them that
disease seems inevitable, a natural part of the human condition; if we
succeed in eliminating one kind of disease, there will always be a new one
at hand, waiting to take its place.
These are paranoid delusions on a societal scale, explainable in part by
our need for enemies, and in part by our memory of what things used
to be like.
In real life, however, even in our worst circumstances we have always
been a relatively minor interest of the vast microbial world. Pathogenicity
is not the rule. Indeed, it occurs so infrequently and involves such a
relatively small number of species, considering the huge population
of bacteria on the earth, that it has a freakish aspect. Disease usually
results from inconclusive negotiations for symbiosis, an overstepping
of the line by one side or the other, a biologic misinterpretation of
borders.
From – Lives Of A Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher(1974) by Lewis Thomas, M.D.
(This was taken from a publication Robert and I produced at
Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic, in 1978 - called
The Force ---and how true it still is - today! The
microbial world is teeming with possibility - only the
resistance of the host (ie. our own Innate Intelligence and
immunity) is paramount....
For more on the global fear-trip, SARS (Sickening And Repulsive Scam)
please see articles posted at chickenlil.org
Watching television, you’d think we lived at bay, in total jeopardy,
surrounded on all sides by human-seeking germs, shielded against
infection and death only by a chemical technology which enables us
to keep killing them off. We are instructed to spray disinfectants
everywhere, into the air of our bedrooms and kitchens and with
special energy into bathrooms, since it is our very own germs that
seem the worst kind. We explode clouds of aerosol, mixed for good
luck with deodorants, into our noses, mouths, underarms, privileged
crannies—even into the intimate insides of our telephones. We apply
potent antibiotics to minor scratches and seal them with plastic.
Plastic is the new protector; we wrap the already plastic tumblers of
hotels in more plastic, and seal the toilet seats like state secrets after
irradiating them with ultraviolet light. We live in a world where the
microbes are always trying to get at us, to tear us from cell to cell, and
we only stay alive and whole through diligence and fear.
We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized
kind of demonology, in which bacteria are the most visible and centrally
placed of our adversaries. We assume that they must somehow relish what
they do. They come after us for profit, and there are so many of them that
disease seems inevitable, a natural part of the human condition; if we
succeed in eliminating one kind of disease, there will always be a new one
at hand, waiting to take its place.
These are paranoid delusions on a societal scale, explainable in part by
our need for enemies, and in part by our memory of what things used
to be like.
In real life, however, even in our worst circumstances we have always
been a relatively minor interest of the vast microbial world. Pathogenicity
is not the rule. Indeed, it occurs so infrequently and involves such a
relatively small number of species, considering the huge population
of bacteria on the earth, that it has a freakish aspect. Disease usually
results from inconclusive negotiations for symbiosis, an overstepping
of the line by one side or the other, a biologic misinterpretation of
borders.
From – Lives Of A Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher(1974) by Lewis Thomas, M.D.
(This was taken from a publication Robert and I produced at
Sherman College of Straight Chiropractic, in 1978 - called
The Force ---and how true it still is - today! The
microbial world is teeming with possibility - only the
resistance of the host (ie. our own Innate Intelligence and
immunity) is paramount....
For more on the global fear-trip, SARS (Sickening And Repulsive Scam)
please see articles posted at chickenlil.org
