![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a little more Rob-time
Aug. 27th, 2004 10:06 pmWe ordered pizza and ate all snuggly-feets on the couch. Yay. We talked a LOT - granted that most people wouldn't find 18th century Naval warfare, who actually started the hundred-years war, the influenza outbreak of 1918, and the causes of Japanese involvement in WWII to be enjoyable snuggle conversation, but we're geeks.
My geekness
----------------------------
Been reading a LOT since I'm still not working. Finished 'The Great Influenza', and they had an interesting theory I'd not encountered before. One of the most remarkable thinks about the 1918 flu epidemic was the fact that most of the deaths from the flu (as opposed to secondary infections like pneumonia) occurred in the 18-35 age bracket - the "young & healthy". Most books I have read about it theorized that the 1918 flu was similar enough to a previous strain that those who had gotten that one had partial immunity to the 1918 strain. However, recent research on conditions like SARS have sprouted a new theory - that what killed with the massive lung damage and cyanosis was not the virus itself, but a syndrome resulting from the extreme immunological response to infection. The fluids, white blood cells, and other by-products of the immune response built up in the lungs faster than the body could clear them, and which was what caused the damage. This would account for the age-specific figures - those with the "heathliest" and strongest immune systems would have had the strongest response to the infection, causing the syndrome. Those with weakened immune systems would have had a slower response to the initial infection, and would have been able to deal with these effects more easily. Wow.
I have always thought that my fondness for history was simply because I never outgrew "But WHY?"!!!! "and THEN what happened?"!!!
My geekness
----------------------------
Been reading a LOT since I'm still not working. Finished 'The Great Influenza', and they had an interesting theory I'd not encountered before. One of the most remarkable thinks about the 1918 flu epidemic was the fact that most of the deaths from the flu (as opposed to secondary infections like pneumonia) occurred in the 18-35 age bracket - the "young & healthy". Most books I have read about it theorized that the 1918 flu was similar enough to a previous strain that those who had gotten that one had partial immunity to the 1918 strain. However, recent research on conditions like SARS have sprouted a new theory - that what killed with the massive lung damage and cyanosis was not the virus itself, but a syndrome resulting from the extreme immunological response to infection. The fluids, white blood cells, and other by-products of the immune response built up in the lungs faster than the body could clear them, and which was what caused the damage. This would account for the age-specific figures - those with the "heathliest" and strongest immune systems would have had the strongest response to the infection, causing the syndrome. Those with weakened immune systems would have had a slower response to the initial infection, and would have been able to deal with these effects more easily. Wow.
I have always thought that my fondness for history was simply because I never outgrew "But WHY?"!!!! "and THEN what happened?"!!!
