08 October 2007

Diagnosis murder

From the Beeb:

Symptoms develop after three to 10 days, and include flu-like illness, inflammation of the brain, coma and death.
Hmm... if death is a symptom of the disease, then you're pretty much fucked from the start. Quite scary stuff, this.

I was going to comment on the world being a healthier place before mass long-distance travel, when all we had was the occasional outbreak of ergot giving entire villages a nice trippy experience. But even then there was the plague being spread by rats travelling on ships to Norway (Det kom eit skip til Bjørgvin and all that), and I don't suppose the mass long-distance travel that were the crusades were the healthiest pastimes around. And then of course there is the case of mass long-distance travel being caused (well, facilitated, more like) by an unhealthy situation (*).

(*) Exodus 7-12, mainly.(**)
(**) Airport gates, and exits more generally, are called έξοδος in Greek. I wonder whether flights to Tel Aviv depart from Gate 12...

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