Word: viruses
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Stillman staff "more people always get sick in the winter," but such was not the case in the summer school year of 1942 Contratto recalled. At this time the hospital optomistically closed three wards, only to be overwhelmed with poison ivy, bronchial complaints, and an epidemic of virus pneumonia...
Live & Let Live. Because viruses move in a twilight zone between life and inanimate matter, scientists used to think that they might represent the primitive beginnings of life. Many experts now believe that it is the other way around. One of the world's top virus authorities, Australia's Dr. Frank M. Burnet, a champion of the evolution-in-reverse theory, contends that viruses may once have been bacteria and that they are steadily degenerating into more simple forms...
...Burnet thinks that man has less to fear from viruses than from bacteria. An outstanding fact about viruses, says he, is that their well-being depends on the health of their host. Unlike bacteria and insects, which are often out-&-out rivals of man, viruses can live only as long as the human being they infect. Unfortunately for the host, viruses often commit suicide by killing the patient. But in the long run, says Burnet, the virus varieties with the best chance of survival are those that "live & let live." Many of the viruses that infect man have evolved into...
...Vulnerable Minority. Many virus diseases that chronically attack man-measles, mumps, chickenpox, herpes (blistered lips)-are mild. Serious epidemics, Burnet says, usually arise 1) in a susceptible population that has not been exposed to the virus, or 2) from a virulent new virus produced by a change in an old form...
...Viruses, says Burnet, are an unhappy byproduct of civilization; they cannot survive in small or widely scattered populations. Because viruses multiply fast and change in unexpected ways, "new virus diseases of man may well arise in the future." But the chances against any new virus getting a strong foothold are a million...