I was listening to my favorite program last night, BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time. This week was focused on “The Origins of Infectious Disease.” As usual, Melvyn Bragg puts forth a fascinating topic. One of the superb panelists, Prof. Steve Jones pointed out that we could divide the roughly 2-300,000 years of H. sapiens into three ages of death:
The Age of Disaster: Where we often met our demise as we were bitten, impaled, or otherwise devoured.
The Age of Disease: Where, following our transition into more agrarian societies, we frequently died from various plagues and pestilence as we moved into more closely-packed groups, towns, and cities.
The Age of Decay: When, as we began to successfully learn to collectively fight infections, we began to wither away.While there are obviously dramatic exceptions to this very rough framework, it is really a nice one to begin the discussion, particularly in the context of what might call the plague of decay of our time: diabetes. If so, I would posit, we interested in healing, prevention and mobility are uniquely suited to making a difference.
-DGA
