Germ, from the Latin "To Sprout"

Germ theory formally developed in the 1800s but the seed was planted long before.

 

An "animalcular" theory, published in 1658, can be found in Athanasius Kircher’s Scrutinium Physico–Medicum Contagiosae Luis. In the 19th century, the animacular theory was associated with an outdated past. The idea of tiny, invisible animals flying through the air and spreading disease seemed fanciful.

 

In miasma theory, diseases were caused by the presence in the air of a miasma, a poisonous vapor in which were suspended particles of decaying matter that was characterized by its foul smell. The theory originated in the Middle Ages and endured for several centuries. That a killer disease like malaria is so named - from the Italian mala ‘bad’ and aria ‘air’ - is evidence of its suspected miasmic origins.

Moreover in 19th-century England the miasma theory made sense to the sanitary reformers and fit with the notion of spontaneous generation.

 

Spontaneous generation—the theory that living organisms could arise from nonliving matter—was an important element in the early development of the germ theory. It was the obverse of germ theory and proponents of spontaneous generation argued the impossibility of knowing whether microorganisms found in these materials were the cause or the product of decomposition. Later debates around the role of germs in disease would be similar; it would take years to prove that germs found in the bodies of sick people were the cause of their disease and not the result of it.

Germ theory states that many diseases are caused by the presence and actions of specific micro-organisms within the body. Awareness of the physical existence of germs preceded the theory by more than two centuries. Discoveries made by several individuals also pointed the way to germ theory.

 

On constructing his first simple microscope in 1677, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek was surprised to see tiny organisms - which he called ‘animalcules’ - in the droplets of water he was examining. He made no connection with disease, and although later scientists observed germs in the blood of people suffering from disease, they suggested that the germs were an effect of the disease, rather than the cause. This fitted with the then popular theory of spontaneous generation.

 

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) found that liquids such as beer and milk went bad because of the rapid multiplication of very small organisms - germs - in those liquids. He investigated further and found that many of these micro-organisms could be killed by heating the liquid: a preservation method now called ‘pasteurization’. He showed experimentally that the decay of meat was caused by microbes. The chemist argued that this could explain disease as well as decay, claiming that disease was caused by the multiplication of germs in the body. He went on to develop a new form of vaccination - by chance he discovered that germs which had been weakened by long exposure to the air caused immunity to cholera in chickens.

 

Ignaz Semmelweiss (1818-1865) was a Hungarian physician whose studies showed that maternal fever--often fatal--after childbirth was the result of contamination spread by the dirty hands of physicians from patient to patient and, often, from autopsies done right before delivery. Hand washing had a dramatic impact on infective illness.

 

Joseph Lister was present for the first operation done under anesthesia in 1846. He read Pasteur's work on micro-organisms and decided to experiment with using one of Pasteur's proposed techniques, that of exposing the wound to chemicals. He chose dressings soaked with carbolic acid (phenol) to cover the wound and the rate of infection was vastly reduced. Lister then experimented with hand-washing, sterilizing instruments and spraying carbolic in the theatre while operating, in order to limit infection.

 

John Snow (1813-1848) was famous for delivering the last two of Queen Victoria's children using anesthesia. But he is best known for his epidemiological evaluation of cholera. By recording the location of deaths related to a cholera outbreak in London in 1854, Snow was able to show that the majority were clustered around one particular public water pump in Broad Street, Soho; another blow against miasma.

 

Robert Koch first became known for his superior laboratory techniques in the 1870s, and is credited with proving that specific germs caused anthrax, cholera, and tuberculosis.  Koch's Postulates, which prove both that specific germs cause specific diseases and that disease germs transmit disease from one body to another, are fundamental to the germ theory.

Elite Jobs

A subtle move is afoot in the halls of our esteemed leaders: There is developing a hierarchy of "approved professions" manifested by how college loans are managed. This is appearing in how the government handles its educational debtors.
There are no constraints on education costs. Lovely campuses, casual teaching workloads, top-heavy administrations all contribute to an expanding educational cost that exceeds medicine's. This is all done at a usurious interest rate with most close to 8%, all owed to the government. And you can't default on the government. 40% of students have at least one school loan and the national total is 1.2 trillion dollars. 18.2% is cosigned and last year 155 thousand people had their social security attached to pay for their grandchildren's defaulted loans.
But some students can cut their indebtedness entirely. Wipe them clean. How? Certain special professions are forgiven their loans. Who? People who go into government work or nonprofits. Why? Why indeed.

Sunday Sermon 10/12/14

In the vein of the Mary and Martha poem by Kipling recently, James Hunt's poem about good works, a heresy among Luther and the reformists.


Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
"What writest thou?"—The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

Cab Thoughts 10/11/14

A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him.--deTocqueville

 

China has over sixty submarines and will have around seventy-five or so in the next few years, slightly more than the United States. China 'is outbuilding the U.S, in new submarines by four to one' since 2000, and by 'eight to one' since 2005, even as the U.S. Navy's ASW (antisubmarine warfare) forces have diminished, write James C. Bussert of the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center and Bruce A. Elleman of the U.S. Naval War College. The China sea is a hotbed of war manufacturing. India, South Korea, and even Vietnam are expected to acquire six more subs apiece by the end of the current decade, while Australia will acquire twelve new subs within twenty years, though recent budgetary restrictions may affect this statistic downward, ... Singapore, a tiny citystate at the southern extremity of the South China Sea, is now among the world's top ten arms importers. (from Asia's Cauldron by Robert D. Kaplan)

 

The Earth's core is a dense sphere of nickel and iron with a diameter of about 700 miles.


A serial killer said in a letter from prison that he was cooperating with a book about the 10 people he killed in the Wichita area to help the victims’ families monetarily. The killer is Dennis L. Rader, who during his killing spree called himself “B.T.K.,” which stood for “bind, torture, kill.” Katherine Ramsland, the author corresponding with Mr. Rader on the project, envisions an "academic" book.

 

Britain has closed their borders to Ebola source countries. But the U.S. has not. Obama says that would conflict with the goal of fighting the disease. Does that mean the safety of the American people takes second place to the goal of helping people overseas? That has been true in war. But is it true if we protect ourselves, we cannot protect others?

 

England and Scotland had been united in 1603 on the death of Elizabeth I when the Stuart, James VI of Scotland, was offered the throne and also became James I of England. His son, Charles I (ruled 1625-49),  attempted to impose the Anglican Prayerbook on the Scots and they piously invaded England. Parliament rebelled over the war's financing and issued the Grand Remonstrance against him. Bloody civil war broke out in 1642 and Parliamentary troops, mostly Puritans, led by Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), defeated Charles at the Battles of Marston Moor (1644) and Naseby (1645). Charles I was eventually captured and executed in 1649.



Who is....Lady Murasaki?

 

80% of the matter in the universe is a type of particle or particles that emit no light, interact very weakly with matter in our everyday world, yet exert profound gravitational influence on the rotation of galaxies and the movement of galaxy clusters. But most of the universe is made not of matter but a strange and unidentified type of energy– “dark energy”– that accelerates the expansion of the universe and may one day carry distant galaxies forever out of view.

According to Chinese scientists, zapping a young wine with electricity makes it taste like something you’ve cellar aged. Scientists aren’t quite sure how it happens yet, but it seems that running your wine for precisely three minutes through an electrified field charges the esters, proteins, and aldehydes and can “age” a wine instantly.

 

Although it is the closest planet to the sun, Mercury is not the hottest planet in the Solar System, Venus is. With an average surface temperature of 864 degrees, Venus can melt lead.

The earliest Japanese societies appear to have been matriarchal, the mythical founding deity of the imperial clan was the Sun Goddess, and the ruler was a woman.  In the Heian period (794 to 1185 AD), the woman was the head of the household and the husband generally did not live with the family. (The author, Lady Murasaki , wrote what is called the first novel, The Tale of Genji, during this period.) By the 12th century AD, as the samurai class became dominant, the husband and wife lived together and polygamy became prevalent.

 

Golden oldie:

http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-power-of-free-association.html

 

To the question, "Do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq?" President Obama said,  "What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision."

 

The NFL is having players wear pink in support of women. So how they position themselves has no relation at all with how they behave. They are truly America's game.

 

LBJ’s Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, was in France when De Gaulle decided to pull out of NATO. De Gaulle said he wanted all US military out of France as soon as possible.
Rusk responded, “Does that include those who are buried here?”
De Gaulle did not respond

lubricious: adjective: 1. Lecherous. 2. Salacious. 3. Shifty or tricky. 4. Smooth and slippery. From Latin lubricus (slippery, smooth). 

 

Ian Morris has a book out called "War: What is it Good For?", and finds the answer to be "a lot." It is filled with wonderful facts like Stone Age conflict had a 20%  mortality rate compared to 1-2% for modern conflict. (How is that truth reached, I do not know.) He says, "by fighting wars, people have created larger, more organized societies that have reduced the risk that their members will die violently."

It is said that the Hundred Years War helped organize France into a country, giving it a common language in the battlefield and led to a more ordered and civilized Europe. These arguments trail on forever. We have learned from the Nazi gas chambers; it does not justify them.

AAAAnnnnnndddd.....the proportion of matter, dark matter and dark energy in the universe:

Meltdown

September 18th 2008:
550 billion dollars were withdrawn from money market accounts on September 18, 2008 in less than two hours. Panic began to seep into the market and others withdrew money. The FED could not stop it with an infusion of 105 billion so they shut down the money market accounts and guaranteed $250,000 coverage for every money market account. If they had not done that their estimation was that by two o’clock that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the United States. Panic would have increased, threatened Europe and economic failure was in the offing.
Rep. Paul Kanjorski later described this as an "electronic run on the banks".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODBPlD0FXOU
Now you can not just take money out of a system anonymously. So who was doing it? There must be a record. But this did not seem to be very interesting to anyone. It likely was a reaction to the Lehman collapse and the money was probably not withdrawn but shifted. (I hope not into short accounts, though.) But it would be interesting to see who it was.That, however, is not--or at least should not-- be the point. Kanjorski is implying the system was "attacked." But that subversive motive actually underestimates the problem. The real problem is that malice was not necessary; the system with its high volume computer trading can do this on its own.
 

Milky Way Rainbow

At Yellowstone.

Cab Thoughts

The turkey was fed and sheltered for 1000 consecutive days, but this did not mean that the butcher loved him. --anon

 

 

Nearly 85 percent of the population of Qatar is made up of foreigners.

 

A Kurdish official said that Jordan Matson, an American citizen, had joined the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), who are mainly battling advances by Islamic State close to Syria's borders with Turkey and Iraq. A friend of Matson's said he told online gaming friends about two months ago that he was joining a "private army" to fight Islamic State. Matson had said he was formerly in the military.

 

Who is.....Kim Philby?

 

Ignaz Semmelweiss (1818-1865) was a Hungarian physician who used a rigorous analytic approach to determine why women were dying from infection following childbirth. He concluded that there was a connection between the illness and hygiene--of the physician--and recommended vigorous hand-washing between patient contacts. (This was not ever done at the time.) He was committed to an insane asylum when he started to exhibit what was possibly the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease. While there he was beaten by the staff and died from his injuries. One of the most important men of the 19th Century science world was beaten to death in a hospital by its staff.

 

An article, "How Climate Change Helped ISIS," was published in September in the Huffington Post.

 

An editorial writer for the Boston Globe with the wonderful name of Hiawatha Bray has written an article on the importance of addresses when evaluating epidemics. It is a clever idea being pursued by a number of people and countries particularly India, Ireland and the West African countries. Michael Olsen, a Utah land developer has a plan to put millions of people on the map, in Liberia and around the world. Olsen’s nonprofit organization, Addressing Homes LLC, has developed a universal standard for generating addresses, based on a building’s latitude and longitude. He uses Google. There is a funny moment where Olson goes to the Postmaster of Liberia, Frederick Norkeh, and shows him his plan and results.  “I want to take it home and show my wife and family we have an address,” Norkeh said.

 

Golden oldie:
http://steeleydock.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-filter-of-memory-and-motive.html

 

Abigail Adams was determined to save her children from the fate of her brother and his family. (She had seen him succumb to alcohol and debauchery, desert his family, and leave them penniless.) She was very strict with her children. She actually took her seven year old son John Quincy to Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775 to see the price paid for freedom. Amid the carnage he saw the Adams' family friend, Dr. Joseph Warren, killed.





The vineyard canary: Vintners plant roses among their vines because they get sick before anything else in the field. If there’s mildew in the air, it will infect the roses first and give a winemaker a heads-up that it’s time to spray.





Wainwright, a pitcher with consummate control, hit the Dodgers Puig with a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball. The next man up, Gonzalez, initiated an almost fight with this exchange with the Cardinal catcher Molina:

"I was just basically saying, 'You guys keep doing this over and over. We're not going to put up with that,'" Gonzalez said after the game. "They're going to say it's not on purpose, but come on. It's Wainwright. He knows where the ball is going." Gonzalez said Molina's response was, "You've got to respect me."
"I thought that was out of context, but it's what he said," the Dodgers first baseman said.

 

On Sept. 25, 2013, the Washington Post reported that Antarctic sea ice had grown to a record extent for the second straight year — some 19.51 million square kilometers. In June of this year, the Post noted a possible new record ice extent is "part of a puzzling 33-year trend in increasing sea ice around Antarctica."

 

"But even in the United States, human slavery now is greater than it ever was during the 18th or 19th century. In Atlanta, Georgia, we have between 200-300 girls sold into sexual slavery every month." So former President Jimmy Carter said in an interview. The fantasy world of politicians always substitutes hyperbole as fact. Like art, it becomes a reflection of reality and of value itself.

 

The National Book Foundation named the authors included on this year's "5 under 35" list. The young authors are occasional NPR contributor Alex Gilvarry, Yelena Akhtiorskaya, Valeria Luiselli, Kirstin Valdez Quade and Iraq War veteran Phil Klay, whose short story collection Redeployment also made it onto this year's longlist for the National Book Awards.

 

In 1940, the Japanese Army Air Force bombed Ningbo with ceramic bombs full of fleas carrying the bubonic plague. Many of these operations were ineffective due to inefficient delivery systems, although up to 400,000 people may have died. During the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign in 1942, around 1,700 Japanese troops died out of a total 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their own biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces.

 

In the South China Sea there are four narrow  "choke points," the Malacca, Sunda, Lombok, and Makassar straits. More than half of the world's annual merchant fleet tonnage passes through these choke points, and a third of all maritime traffic worldwide. The oil transported through the Malacca Strait from the Indian Ocean, en route to East Asia through the South China Sea, is triple the amount that passes through the Suez Canal and fifteen times the amount that transits the Panama Canal. 200 small islands and rock/reefs lie in this area and, although most are rarely above water, these sites are lusted after by local nations--including China--because of their geographical importance but also for their possible oil reserves.



Factitious \fak-TISH-uhs\, adjective: 1. Produced artificially, in distinction from what is produced by nature. 2. Artificial; not authentic or genuine; sham. From Latin facticius, "made by art, artificial," from the past participle of facere, "to make."



The huge cyberattack on JPMorgan Chase that touched more than 83 million households and businesses was one of the most serious computer intrusions into an American corporation. Also troubling is that about nine other financial institutions — a number that has not been previously reported — were also infiltrated by the same group of overseas hackers, according to people briefed on the matter. The hackers are thought to be operating from Russia and appear to have at least loose connections with officials of the Russian government, the people briefed on the matter said. (NYT)





AAAAaaaannnnnnddddd......a poem that NPR called "devastating:"

 

Certain moments send adrenaline to the heart, dry out
the tongue, and clog the lungs. Like thunder they drown
you in sound, no, like lightning they strike you across the
larynx. Cough. After it happened I was at a loss for words.
Haven’t you said this yourself? Haven’t you said this to a
close friend who early in your friendship, when distracted,
would call you by the name of her black housekeeper?
You assumed you two were the only black people in her
life. Eventually she stopped doing this, though she never
acknowledged her slippage. And you never called her on
it (why not?) and yet, you don’t forget. If this were a
domestic tragedy, and it might well be, this would be your
fatal flaw - your memory, vessel of your feelings. Do you
feel hurt because it’s the ‘all black people look the same’
moment, or because you are being confused with another
after being so close to this other?

 

An unsettled feeling keeps the body front and center. The
wrong words enter your day like a bad egg in your mouth
and puke runs down your blouse, a dampness drawing
your stomach in toward your rib cage. When you look
around only you remain. Your own disgust at what you
smell, what you feel, doesn’t bring you to your feet, not
right away, because gathering energy has become its own
task, needing its own argument. You are reminded of a
conversation you had recently, comparing the merits of
sentences constructed implicitly with ‘yes, and’ rather
than ‘yes, but.’ You and your friend decided that ‘yes,
and’ attested to a life with no turn-off, no alternative
routes: you pull yourself to standing, soon enough the
blouse is rinsed, it’s another week, the blouse is beneath
your sweater, against your skin, and you smell good.

 

The rain this morning pours from the gutters and everywhere
else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses
to single out what you know is there because doubt is
inexorable; you put on your glasses. The trees, their bark,
their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet.
Yes, and it’s raining. Each moment is like this - before
it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing
and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen.
What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I
hear what I think I heard? Did that just come out of my
mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment stinks. Still
you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walk out
and stand among them. And as light as the rain seems, it
still rains down on you.

--Claudia Rankine,  a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and the 2014 winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize. She teaches at Pomona College.