Читать книгу Modern Epidemics - Salvador Macip - Страница 25

It took us many centuries to discover that we were being killed by living beings we couldn’t even see. In fact, we’ve been at the mercy of microorganisms for most of our history because we didn’t have a good strategy for dealing with them. This is a struggle we were spectacularly losing until very recently. At least in developed countries, science has provided us with tools – which I will describe in the next chapter – that can end up holding many kinds of microbes in check. Furthermore, we now know the cause of almost all infectious diseases and how they are transmitted, which allows us to look for effective means of curbing them with social, health, hygienic and even urban planning interventions. In some extraordinary cases, we’ve achieved the total elimination of a microbe from the planet and it’s possible that we will soon be able to repeat this feat with others. Despite this situation, which invites some degree of optimism, we shouldn’t forget that, on numerous occasions throughout history, microbes have influenced our destiny as a species.