Post B6ERknMJHqxIaMMhTU by idlestate@toot.cat
(DIR) More posts by idlestate@toot.cat
(DIR) Post #B6ERkn7QBD2tqBOoGe by idlestate@toot.cat
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Saying someone has "a cold" or "the flu" have such deep roots in common use. This is as much a question of linguistics as of medicine or biology.As such, it carries with it all the fraught aspects of linguistic prescriptivism. Here, I'm thinking particularly about exercises of, and resistance to, authority.These terms are like "consumption" or "the grippe" or "the flux". They are descriptive & symptomatic, first, foremost, and probably always, to some extent. I still boggle at how new, still, molecular diagnostics are, and specifically how, out of all recorded history of disease, the COVID-19 pandemic has been unprecedented in the widespread deployment of them, revealing both their power & their limits.https://social.v.st/@quixoticgeek/116561483062430481
(DIR) Post #B6ERknMJHqxIaMMhTU by idlestate@toot.cat
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The germ theory of disease is a powerful tool, but like any theory, it has its limits. Even amongst those very well informed and well-intentioned, it gets fairly complicated when it meets the dynamics of disease in populations (statistics, epidemiology), molecular biology (what even is a discrete species & how do we measure & talk about variation in them), and immunology (where to even begin?).
(DIR) Post #B6ERknZ4WPADDwKtMm by idlestate@toot.cat
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Note well that even the word "disease" maps tightly to our direct experience: We feel bad.Everything else is a matter of investigation and interpretation: Querying, describing, & cataloguing symptoms, then comparing them to those of others. "Am I using this thermometer right? I feel like I have a fever, but this reads low, so I don't know."
(DIR) Post #B6ERknlpkxN7rWJ5G4 by idlestate@toot.cat
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I think I've had flu a few times. Yes, very intense. Fever, aches, abed with long periods of fluid consciousness, unclear when and whether I was awake and hallucinating or dreaming. I remember quite clearly the onset of symptoms the last time, sitting in an airport terminal of all places, waiting for a flight home, in the early 2010sBut really I have no idea whether it was ever the influenza virus, let alone what type or subtype, any time I had it. Neither do the vast majority of its sufferers, even now, and certainly not historically. These things are, and probably always will be identified and tracked by symptoms not just at first, but first & last.
(DIR) Post #B6ERko1QoxqgdtbXZQ by idlestate@toot.cat
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This last time, neither of the other people in my household had been sick, before or after, so far as I can tell.I understand this as probably a difference in epidemiology & immunology. I can't say for sure, but it might have simply been down to my being lax about my own vaccinations. Kid was probably vaxxed for flu at the time. I doubt spouse was.I have been pretty assiduous about vaccinations these last 5 years. COVID caught us out one autumn before we had gotten our innoculations.
(DIR) Post #B6ERkoDU69URFHFAMC by idlestate@toot.cat
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This has been on my mind lately because of one genus of sometimes-pathogenic bacteria against which I was recently vaccinated: Strep.
(DIR) Post #B6ERkoOpPyZ1oSYE2S by idlestate@toot.cat
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Only, it's not called a Strep vaccine. The vaccine is named for the particular species of Strep. That species, in turn, is named for the symptomatic description of just one of the infectious diseases it causes: Pneumoniaeg, Streptococcus pneumoniae
(DIR) Post #B6ERkocIbtL6UEqz2G by idlestate@toot.cat
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"The organism also causes many types of pneumococcal infections other than pneumonia. These invasive pneumococcal diseases include bronchitis, rhinitis, acute sinusitis, otitis media, conjunctivitis, meningitis, sepsis, osteomyelitis, septic arthritis, endocarditis, peritonitis, pericarditis, cellulitis, and brain abscess."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcus_pneumoniae
(DIR) Post #B6ERkop3qRY17opAvY by idlestate@toot.cat
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Family lore includes the story of the death of someone, in their teens, who would have been one of my grand-piblings (was my grandParent's sibling, see also "nibling" for sideways down rather than sideways up).It was "scarlet fever" & sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s I guess? Not just before molecular diagnostics but before antibiotics.Streptococcus pyogenesWe absorbed a lot of fear of or respect for "strep throat" as kids.
(DIR) Post #B6ERkp2X2MK5nb7vvM by idlestate@toot.cat
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Part of that family legacy was the (I think, still widespread) notion that you can get sick by being underdressed for the weather: In short, that you catch a "cold" by being "cold."A simplistic germ-theoretic take might hold that as hogwash.But then, we know that stress changes our physiology. So, I'd be hesitant to dismiss stressors as being a contributing factor, tipping the balance in favor of pathogens & against our immune system.
(DIR) Post #B6ERkpH4AJwuWfvXZw by idlestate@toot.cat
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What's more, there's this binary idea that with infection, you either have a "bug" or you don't. In an extreme sense, it promotes sterility, being "germ free"."Germ free" makes almost as little sense given what we now know as does "chemical free".Life not only does, but for a very long time has continued to, find a bizarrely riotous variety of ways.
(DIR) Post #B6ERkpVFJbI9EeYrgG by idlestate@toot.cat
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Some of our pathogens are viruses, like flu & COVID. But many, like the Streptococci mentioned above, are bacteria. They and their myriad cousins live in us and all around us, often not just benignly, but necessarily: We need them to stay healthy, in some cases if only to fill a spot that might be taken by something considerably less friendly.