Bacteria are the ancient enemy,

at least here in Thailand, where TB still takes lives. These are the wars that may never end. Plagues have taken many more lives than any war, decimating the population of Europe repeatedly in the 1300’s as cities created perfect conditions for them. Maybe cities are just a conspiracy on the part of diseases to round us up for their own purposes. Germ warfare has long been used by men, without a thought that the real winners might be the germs themselves. It doesn’t help that antibiotics are frequently misused, even serving as food preservatives in places where health education is more enthusiastic than well informed. The new enemy is viruses, DNA in a nutshell, machine code, pure software without all the hardware. They’re tougher nuts to crack, not even being life as such. Life can be killed; viruses can only be outsmarted.

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