Alcoholism

The book "Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson is about a terrible cholera outbreak in 1854 in London. Hundreds of people died in a very short period of time in a small neighborhood.  Cholera is an intestinal disease that is spread through unsanitary waste systems. It was an interesting book describing how the problem was solved. It was traced back to one water pump in the neighborhood. 

I love indoor plumbing.

Here is an especially fascinating detail in the book that really caught my attention.

The search for unpolluted drinking water is as old as civilization itself.  As soon as there were mass human settlements, waterborne diseases like dysentery became a crucial problem.  For much of history, the solution to this chronic public-health issue was not purifying the water supply.  It was to drink alcohol. In a community lacking pure water supplies, the closest thing to "pure" fluid was alcohol.  Whatever health risks were posed by beer (and later wine) in the early days, were more than offset by alcohol's antibacterial properties.  Dying of cirrhosis of the liver in your forties was better than dying of dysentery in your twenties.

Alcohol is a deadly poison and notoriously addictive.  To digest large quantities of it, your body needs to increase the production of certain enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenases.  Many living in rural areas lacked that ability, and were genetically unable to "hold their liquor."  Many of these died childless at an early age, either from alcohol abuse or from waterborne diseases.

Over generations, the gene pool became dominated by those who could drink beer on a regular basis.  Most of the world's population today is made up of descendants of those early beer drinkers, and we have largely inherited their genetic tolerance for alcohol.

The descendants of hunter-gatherers - like many Native Americans or Australian Aborigines - were never forced through this genetic bottleneck, and today they show higher rates of alcoholism than the general population.

This same genetic tolerance story is true of lactose, which went from a rare genetic trait to the mainstream among the descendants of the herders, thanks to the domestication of livestock.

Now you have heard something interesting.

Phantom limbs

The Sherlock Holmes of modern neurology is a man from India named V. S. Ramachandran.  He believes that individual cases in medicine have much to contribute to science.  He says, "Imagine I were to present a pig to a skeptical scientist, insisting it could speak English, then waved my hand, and the pig spoke English.  Would it really make sense for the skeptic to argue 'But that is just one pig, Ramachandran.  Show me another, and I might believe you!' "

This next amazing story is another from the book "The Brain That Changes Itself" by Norman Doidge, M.D. 

The book explains how scientists can map our brain and tell what part of the brain is driving different body functions.  It has been proven that "use it or lose it" rules the brain.  That is why when a skill in music or a second language, for instance, is not used, the brain does not sit idle in that part of the brain map, but assigns it to something else.Another example is when someone loses their sight and their other senses become stronger and sharper.  It is because that part of the brain that used to be used for sight is now assigned to help with the other senses.

But there is a downside, too.  It is called "phantom pain."

Lord Nelson, the British admiral, lost his right arm in 1797. Soon afterward, he vividly began to experience the presence of his arm, a phantom limb that he could feel but not see.  "Nelson concluded that its presence was 'direct evidence for the existence of the soul,' reasoning that if an arm can exist after being removed, so then might the whole person exist after the annihilation of the body."

Phantom limbs are troubling because they can have chronic "phantom pain."  How do you remove a pain in a limb that isn't there?

Ramachandran showed how.  Philip, an amputee, came to him for help.  He had been in a motorcycle accident a decade before.  He had been traveling at forty-five miles per hour and in the accident all the nerves leading from his left hand and arm to his spine were torn out.  Though his arm was still attached to his body, it was worse than useless to him.  Eventually it was amputated.  He had terrible phantom pain in his phantom elbow, and he felt that if he could move it, the pain would be relieved.  But it was "frozen."

Ramachandran constructed a box with a mirror in the middle, splitting the box into two compartments.  He had Philip put his good arm into the box and told him to imagine putting his phantom arm into the other side.  By looking into the mirror and watching his good hand move, he began to "see" in the mirror his "phantom" hand move as well.  He was able to "stretch" his arm and relieve the pain.  He took the box home, and used it for ten minutes a day.

After four weeks, his brain had rewired and not only was his phantom arm permanently unfrozen, but it was gone.

Ramachandran, the neurological illusionist, had become the first physician to perform a seemingly impossible operation: the successful amputation of a phantom limb.

Now you've heard something interesting.

Polio

I just finished the book Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky.  I really enjoyed learning more about this devastating disease. Since I was born after the vaccine for polio was developed, I didn't live through the fear that surrounded this dreaded disease. 

There were many small steps forward in the understanding of polio and how it affected the body.  For a while, it was thought that the virus entered the nose and went straight to the nervous system.  Then there was an epidemic in a certain county and they decided to take blood samples of every person who ended up in the hospital with it.  One hundred and eleven samples were taken, and only one showed any polio!  That was such a surprise.  After more investigation, it was discovered that the one sample was from a girl who was in the beginning stages of the disease, and was only in the hospital because of the epidemic.  The body makes antibodies to polio quite quickly and moves on to other areas of the body.  So, a vaccine would be useful as the polio did go through the blood.

Then there was the big debate whether or not to use a killed-virus or live-virus vaccine.  The two opposing sides were led by Jonas Salk (killed-virus) and Albert Sabin (live-virus).  Jonas Salk was the first to develop the vaccine, and its field trial was the biggest ever in the nation.  It is administered by injection.  The year was 1955 and more than 1.8 million children were involved.  It took a year to compile the data, and it was then deemed a success.

Famous Salk quote: When he was asked in a televised interview who owned the patent to the vaccine, Salk replied: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

Sabin was publicly hostile towards Salk and the killed-virus vaccine.  After a few years, and through various events, mostly political, Albert Sabin was able to test a live-virus in the USSR and then get it licensed in the United States.  It is an oral vaccine.  This has been the one used ever since.  It is very effective, though a small percentage of people who get the vaccination go on to get the disease from it.  In fact, polio has basically been wiped out in the US, except for these few people.

One tidbit of interesting trivia.  Jonas Salk divorced his wife, Donna, in 1968.  In 1970, he married Françoise Gilot, the former mistress of Pablo Picasso.

Now you've heard something interesting.