Through the eyes of the translator October 20, 2020 – Posted in: Books – Tags: pop science
DEADLY COMPANIONS – How Germs Shaped Our History
GERMS AS DEADLY COMPANIONS – by translator Kika Krambousanou
Microbes first appeared on the planet 4 billion years ago and have coexisted with us since we too made our first ape-like appearance. They colonize our bodies, cause epidemics, shape our history.
This book explores the links between the emergence of our deadly companions, microbes, and the cultural evolution of the human species. It presents a historical account of the great epidemics and examines their consequences in the context of contemporary social events, in order to demonstrate why they arose at particular stages in our history and how they caused the devastation they did.
It also touches on the "modern" status of certain diseases that we mostly associate with the past. For example, the fact that the plague is still among us and that several people, not somewhere exotic, but in the US, are hospitalized with bubonic plague every year. Fortunately few die anymore thanks to antibiotics.
"THE Louis Pasteur first pointed out that "The germ is nothing. The area is everything". We have always been in the territory of microbes and by taking control of the Earth we invaded their space and disrupted their natural cycles and now we are living with the consequences of our actions. But how can we protect ourselves from their pernicious effect on us in the twenty-first century?'
Living in an uncritical corner of the country, I hear every day and from everywhere people speak with aplomb and courage claiming that the coronavirus does not exist but (at the same time, where it does not exist) our coronavirus was sprayed by non-religious people (but the Virgin Mary who loves us blew and sent him to the "other" Christians, the monkeys - Catholics they mean). They welcome the tourist with open arms and come and go from place to place carefree and freely – as long as everything is done freely, in the summer everything is allowed.
Germs such as HIV, SARS and now Covid-19 have been launched with astonishing speed around the world and, with our penchant for constant movement and international travel, other germs are sure to follow. We should all have understood long ago that wherever a new microbe appears, it cannot be considered a local problem.
Translating a book like this in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic helped me a lot to understand how we lead to pandemics and how we can combat them. Not it suits but there is no other way.
"It may be understandable for governments to want to avoid the economic collapse that inevitably accompanies rumors of an epidemic these days, but in our globalized world this is not acceptable. Only global cooperation can prevent the impending devastation of an influenza pandemic. Germs know nothing about countries, nor do they respect their borders. As said by Anthony Fauci, Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, referring to our fight against HIV, "history will judge us as a global community". After all, we have always been treated as such by our mortal companions.'
