Hygiene and Sanitation: How Humans Can Help Limit the Spread of Disease
Living organisms have been in existence for an incredibly long time. Basic to understanding survival is realizing only organisms which live long enough to reproduce (aka, have babies, pass on their DNA) perpetuate subsequent generations that are like the parents. This is a very simple idea but a crucial one. It is the core of Natural Selection, also known as Survival of the Fittest. If a living thing dies or gets killed before it is of age to reproduce, it will not pass on its DNA. Its genotype dies with it, which is probably a good thing because it wasn’t doing very well in that environment anyway and its offspring would likely fare just as poorly.
Vaccinations
Fortunately for us, technological advances have vastly increased our length and quality of life. Vaccines that allow us to avoid deadly and debilitating illnesses like small pox, polio, and even the flu. Antibiotics hasten the end of infections and improvements in hygiene and waste treatment have minimized the proliferation of pathogens.
In 1796 the first vaccine was developed. A physician and scientist named Edward Jenner observed that milkmaids who had cowpox did not develop small pox. He experimented and found that when people were exposed to cowpox, which causes a much less severe disease in humans, they did not develop small pox. When you get a vaccination, a tiny bit of a neutralized pathogen enters the body and, even though it has been rendered harmless, your body still recognizes it as an invader that should not be there (antigen). The body’s natural immunes system is activated and antibodies are produced to attack the antigen. Once they achieve victory, these little soldiers continue to patrol the body so that they can react quickly if the enemy ever tries to invade again, which is why once vaccinated, the real antigen usually cannot harm you.
Jonas Salk developed a very important vaccination against a terrible disease called polio, which caused muscle weakness and could lead to paralysis here in Pittsburgh. In fact the first trials were held in room 102 here at Colfax School. Thanks to the Salk vaccine, polio, which used to be common, has been eradicated from much of the world.
Antibiotics
Penicillin was the first widely used antibiotic. Prior to its introduction, there were no effective treatments for infections. Discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming, Professor of Bacteriology in England, and originally called “mold juice”, Fleming noticed that it was able to kill a wide range of harmful bacteria.2 The use of antibiotics increased average life expectancy by eight years between 1945 and 1972.3 Antibiotics are laboratory created medicines that aid in recovering from infections not due to genetics or viruses. Some of them are based on compounds found in nature and others are manmade. Antibiotics fight infections by interfering with the reproduction of harmful microbes or outright killing them by disrupting basic cellular processes like building of cell walls.
Sanitation
Louis Pasteur’s work led to the end of the idea that life could spontaneously develop from abiotic matter. This led to the practice of pasteurization which kills harmful microbes that humans formerly ingested. As knowledge of microscopic life developed, so did the ability of humans to manipulate our environment in ways that limited the spread of pathogens. Pest controls are ready for hire. Improvements to sanitation has a leading role in the expanding life expectancies. Sewage with its innumerable contaminates, no longer commonly runs in the streets. Water is chlorinated. Pure food practices, pasteurization, and refrigeration have dramatically reduced food-borne illnesses.
Treatment of Simple Illness
Despite all of our magnificent adaptations and advances in sanitation, people get sick. Some sicknesses are caused from pathogens in the outside world and accidents, some illnesses are genetic, and some illnesses are a combination of genes and environment. There are things that can be done to ameliorate the consequences of sickness. The most common ways to treat minor illnesses is through cleanliness, staying home, keeping hydrated, and resting. Frequent hand washing and covering coughs and sneezes with the inner elbow helps minimize the spread of many illnesses. Hot showers and gargling with salt water help make the nose and throat feel better. If antibiotics are prescribed, it is vital that the entire course of medicine be taken to ensure that any infection is entirely killed off. If they are not entirely killed off, you have just trained the remaining survivors to be stronger. By artificial selection, through the antibiotics, you have just killed off the weaker members of the infection and left the strong survivors to reproduce and pass along their hardy genes to subsequent generations. This is how antibiotic resistance is created.
So next time your hear someone fretting about politics, terrorism, and the deterioration of mankind, remember, if you’re old enough to be worried, you’re not dead and you very well may have the opportunity to pass along your wonderful genes.
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