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Dorothy Copus Brush Anthrax is hardly a new disease Last week a large envelope arrived from Stamp
Fulfillment Services bringing stamps I had ordered. Included
was a printed card with this message: 'What's that powder? It's
food starch. We use it to protect our products. This powder inhibits
moisture, cracking and spotting on our items. We want to reassure
you that this powder is nontoxic." Another sign of the times.
That word which strikes fear, anthrax, was never mentioned, but
powder said it all. Today a single word such as powder sets off
a chain reaction in our minds, powder to spore to anthrax. Just
one year ago the word was chad which led to Florida to election.
The word chad did not engender the fear that surrounds powder.
Knowledge can be a great liberator so I searched for more information
on this disease. To most of the public, anthrax is a new disease,
but it is one of the oldest recorded diseases. It appears in
the Bible in Exodus 9:9. In the preceding verse the Lord told
Moses to take a handful of ashes from the furnace and sprinkle
them toward Heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. "And it shall
become small dust in all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil
breaking forth with blains (skin sores) upon man, and upon beast,
throughout all the land of Egypt." Anthrax was one of the
plagues visited upon Egypt before Moses led his people out of
the country. Medieval history records a number of devastating
appearances of the disease. The southern parts of Europe suffered
the spread of anthrax in the 18th and 19th centuries. The specific
micro-organism that caused the disease was discovered in 1863
and some years later the organism was isolated in pure culture,
which allowed Louis Pasteur to find an effective bacterial vaccine
in 1881. These discoveries are cited as leading to the beginnings
and development of the modern sciences of bacteriology and immunology. Animals are often affected by anthrax by grazing
on contaminated pastures. Humans working where animal hair and
wool were processed often became infected with the pulmonary
form of anthrax from inhaling the spores. Because of this the
condition was called "wool sorter's disease." The last scare of a human epidemic of anthrax
was during World War I. Large numbers of British and U.S. troops
as well as civilians in England and the United States were infected
with face anthrax. An intensive investigation found anthrax on
shaving brushes which had been imported from Japan. The Encyclopedia Britannica says the guilty
organism is Bacillus anthrax, and under certain conditions it
forms highly resistant spores that may persist and retain their
virulence in contaminated soil or other material for many years. Experts stress the importance of washing hands
as a defense against anthrax, but there are many good reasons
for this simple act. The unseen world of bacteria and viruses
are always there waiting for a chance to gain entry into the
human body. Even worse than anthrax or the many unknowns
ahead is giving in to fear. These past two months I have given
much thought to the best way to combat fear. Several days ago
an unexpected answer came from my childhood. Out of nowhere my
head was filled with an old hymn: "Love lifted me, love
lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lifted me. " · · · |