Imagine cows peacefully grazing on the lawn, chewing gum, moving from place to place to pinch the green grass. This is the stage of our agricultural past, worthy of the brush of Norman Rockwell: well maintained barns, beautiful hedges, contented cows, and occasionally disturbing silence, the buzzing flies, punctuated by a slap of the tail.…
Read MoreHow to describe the euphoria of those old days? It was 1945. The second world war is over. We have defeated the forces of evil; a more just society has won. Americans were overwhelmed with optimism. Then many children were born – including me. Within 5 years after the war, the Americans bought 20 million…
Read MoreOn a spring morning in 1980, I was driving to work; it was still cold in Atlanta. I worked for more than two months in the hot regions of Bangladesh and India and returned to the center for disease control and prevention with great relief. In the office greeted her with the familiar, sorted mail…
Read MoreThe emergence of pathogens When I was a medical student, I had a summer internship helping a doctor who conducted medical examinations of workers from the West Virginia labor corps. It was a great experience – a lot of clinical work. I have learned to examine healthy young people carefully. My teacher, Dr. Fred Cooley,…
Read MoreThe Human Microbiome Think for a moment about their vital organs. The heart, brain, lungs, kidneys and liver are complex structures that perform the necessary functions to sustain life. Every moment, day and night, they pump liquids, transfer waste, take air and food, transmit signals that allow us to feel the world and move around…
Read MoreOur microbial planet Originally, 4.5 billion years ago, our planet was a lifeless sphere of molten metal. But after a billion years, the oceans were swarming with free living cells. Somehow, not yet entirely clear to science, life was born in these primeval seas. Some say that the first “bricks” of life flew dust from…
Read MoreMy personal journey to understanding that our microbial friends were having problems began on July 9, 1977. This date is well remembered – that’s when I first heard the name of the microbe Campylobacter, which literally gave rise to the cause of my life. I was a new graduate student at the infectious diseases Department…
Read MoreChapter 1. “Plague of Modernity» I didn’t know my father’s two sisters. They were born in a small town at the beginning of the last century and did not live to see their second birthday. One of these days, they have a high fever and, probably, there was something else. The situation was so serious…
Read MoreProblem Medicine – PART 1 Every drug carries a risk. It is impossible to create any chemical substance which would not create any risk neither for women, nor for men; as though it was accepted: through a mouth, a nose, an eye retina, subcutaneously, rectally or vaginally. It is tempting to focus only on those…
Read MoreDebunking 10 myths about vitamins REAL VITAMIN DEFICIENCY IN OUR DAYS IS RARE, and most of the vitamins in sufficient quantities to food. However, it may seem that the food is not so simple — for example, you can hear that when freezing vitamins are lost, and they can destroy some anti-vitamins. Is it true…
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