A Planet of Viruses
“Among the diseases he described in the so-called Ebers Papyrus was something called resh. Even with that strange sounding name, its symptoms—a cough and a flowing of mucus from the nose—are immediately familiar to us all. Resh is the common cold.
Some viruses are new to humanity. Other viruses are obscure and exotic. But human rhinoviruses—the chief cause of the common cold, as well as asthma attacks— are old, cosmopolitan companions. It’s been estimated that every human being will spend a year of his or her life lying in bed, sick with colds. The human rhinovirus is, in other words, one of the most successful viruses of all.
Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, believed that colds were caused by an imbalance of the humors. Two thousand years later, the physiologist Leonard Hill argued in the 1920s that they were caused by walking outside in the morning, from warm to cold air. The first clue to the true cause of colds came when Walter Kruse, a German microbiologist, h...ad a snuffly assistant blow his nose and mix the mucus into a salt solution.MoreLess
Some viruses are new to humanity. Other viruses are obscure and exotic. But human rhinoviruses—the chief cause of the common cold, as well as asthma attacks— are old, cosmopolitan companions. It’s been estimated that every human being will spend a year of his or her life lying in bed, sick with colds. The human rhinovirus is, in other words, one of the most successful viruses of all.
Hippocrates, the ancient Greek physician, believed that colds were caused by an imbalance of the humors. Two thousand years later, the physiologist Leonard Hill argued in the 1920s that they were caused by walking outside in the morning, from warm to cold air. The first clue to the true cause of colds came when Walter Kruse, a German microbiologist, h...ad a snuffly assistant blow his nose and mix the mucus into a salt solution.MoreLess
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