October 10, 2002

  • Columbus Day (Oct 14th) : What can you say?  Less notable historically than he himself and much of modern written history has made him out to be, Columbus was just a third-string discover of the "New World" (after Herjólfsson/Eriksson and Zheng He) who should nevertheless be credited with what historians call the Columbian Exchange—the two-way transfers of diseases, plants, animals, and cultures that followed Columbus’s voyages. Diphtheria, measles, smallpox, and malaria traveled to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Syphilis found its way back to Europe (So you mean that Columbus was just fucking around ?!). And…oh yes…the disease, forced labor, invasion, and conquest imposed by the Europeans caused the deaths of millions of America’s indigenous peoples, in what surely must be considered one of the darkest tragedies of all time.


    In those days, the Europeans, for the most part, had built up immunities to the diseases they brought with them.  Some claim it was their longstanding close association in the typical household with pets and other domesticated animals which acted as the initial vectors of disease that enabled Europeans to develop more robust resistances over time.  The native Americans, on the other hand, essentially had no pets or domesticated animals in their living quarters.  As such, they lived *more cleanly*, but stood openly susceptible to such species-hopping infections when the germ-ridden yet mostly impervious foul-hardened Europeans arrived.


    Well, well, well...what goes around...may now have come back:


    The new findings, published today in The New England Journal of Medicine, add to a growing collection of evidence for the "hygiene hypothesis." This theory suggests that 20th century advances like indoor plumbing, antibiotics and cleaner homes may have contributed to recent increases in allergy, asthma and eczema by decreasing rates of childhood infection. Some infections early in life, the argument goes, help the immune system develop properly.

    —Denise Grady, "Environment Rich in Germs May Reduce Risk of Asthma," The New York Times, September 19, 2002


    And so Paul McFedries on his WordSpy site observes:

    ...so the theory goes, the more germ-free an environment is, the fewer antibodies a kid's immune system will create. This not only leads to an overall weakness in the immune system, but it also means the immune responses will often be downright strange, such as skirmishing with normally harmless substances like cat dander, pollen, and peanuts.


    So maybe we want to let the kids play on the unswept floor a bit more?  Hell, did you ever think how when a small child looks up at you and sees your open nostrils that she is looking up into two cavities that are constantly spewing germs by gravity?  It's true!  I'm willing to bet that even in our germ-scrubbed world there are still a lot more germs at *kid-level* than *adult level* due to this and other mechanisms that serve to bolster kids' immunities (well, at least if they don't mortally succomb).


    My very own offshoot of this "hygiene hypothesis" is the "high jeans hypothesis" that suggests that 20th century advances in tight, clinging, bootylicious girls' jeans may have contributed to recent increases in mens' heart palpitations, general jitteriness, and burgeoning hormone levels by decreasing rates of boys' remaining childhood innocence.  Alas, for those like myself who have already contracted this eventually fatal infectivity and who now stand brazenly exposed to all pelvic onslaughts, there is little more hope than for the last of the Mohicans.

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