Magic Bullet ramble

[threemonkeys]

I have a sinus infection so I get some antibiotics. The sinus infection makes me unhappy and then the side effects of the antibiotics make me unhappy. But then I think "fuck the self pity". I have an infection and it is going to be fixed at a high degree of reliability. This revelation comes about because one of my occasional reading projects involves reading a bunch of stories written in the 1930s before penicillin was developed as the first broad spectrum antibiotic. The thought occurred to me that these people could be killed by any small infection. Sure people have immune systems and there were treatments, but they did not have the reliability of Fleming's magic bullet. It has had a huge impact on society. Not just on medicine but on society. Sure it means that the main causes of death have changed - heart disease and cancer didn't even make the top 10 a century ago. But in a more general sense, antibiotics have made people a bit less fragile and as a result they seem a little more valuable. More valuable because there is an expectation that everybody should get a full life. I'm guessing that people have done studies on how this impacts attitudes but I have never seen them. Antibiotics are one of the great discoveries/inventions of history and yet there doesn't seem to be much written about them these days except for looking at overuse and resistance. When I was a kid, there were lots of writings about Fleming and the discovery of Penicillin. These days this seems to have fallen off the radar a bit. Maybe it is time for somebody to write a pop science history of the antibiotic - treatments prior, Fleming, Florey, Hodgkin etc and newer antibiotics and so forth. Oh wait - they already have!. I really should read it.

I wonder if antibiotics make me ramble more than usual.

Comments

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Yes it does. I may have to take it easy during Conclave but I should be finished the antibiotics the day before I leave for Canberra. Better to get this over with now I guess.