Book 70 - A Year of Magical Learning
- cmsears8384
- Dec 19, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 5, 2022
Reflection Title - Everything in Moderation
Book - The Demon Under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor's Heroic Search for the World's First Miracle Drug by Thomas Hager
Book Description: In The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager chronicles the dramatic history of sulfa, the first antibiotic and the drug that shaped modern medicine. The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. Sulfa saved millions of lives—among them those of Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr.—but its real effects are even more far reaching. Sulfa changed the way new drugs were developed, approved, and sold; transformed the way doctors treated patients; and ushered in the era of modern medicine. The very concept that chemicals created in a lab could cure disease revolutionized medicine, taking it from the treatment of symptoms and discomfort to the eradication of the root cause of illness.
Reflection:
I have a strong dislike for Antibiotics these days. I personally feel like they are the reason for why my daughter is no longer with us in this world. I'll explain...Antibiotics are given out like candy these days, and especially to new born preemies who are most at risk from an attack of a bacterial infection at a young age. My daughter was no different. She was born at 22 weeks and 6 days old and was at an extreme risk from any and all outside factors in this world after she was born. Because of that, her medical team gave her a standard dose of a broad range antibiotic the moment she was born as a preventative measure.
I get it! We want to protect our most precious beings in this world and antibiotics in theory can do that. Well, after 7 days in the hospital, my daughter came down with an infection, and current mystery of the preemie world, called NEC or necrotizing enterocolitis. She spent the rest of her short life fighting off this infection and the ensuing damage to her body until she ultimately lost her battle. Currently, no one knows why NEC happens. I can't prove it, but I think antibiotics are the blame. Hence, why learning about topics surrounding the microbiome has become such a fascination of mine these days.
However, this isn't a reflection about antibiotics and whether they are good or bad. This is another reflection about the importance of balance and moderation in life with antibiotics as our example this time. This story was brilliantly told and it was fascinating to learn about the breakthrough discovery that was the world's first antibiotics. Antibiotics certainly have changed this world and saved a ton of people from death from horrible diseases that we previously had no defense against. For that, I'm grateful at this miracle treatment. That said, like all things we do that are shown to have benefits in this world, we take things to the extreme. Antibiotics are now given out like candy and used for everything it seems like with little regard for the consequences. Just because something seems harmless, doesn't mean it always is and will be forever.
Humans are so short sided. It is our kryptonite. If it helps us today, that is all we care about. However, nature doesn't work this way. Nature is always looking at the long run and keeping things in balance. It will always find a way to tip the scale's back to return the ecosystem to balance and harmony that is needed to exist for billions of years into the future. I have a feeling in 300 years, scientists will be writing about the horrors of overuse of antibiotics and what it has done to our microbiome's.
That is the lesson for me here, everything is okay in moderation. Always remember that nature's goal is balance. We don't know more than nature, know matter how much we think we do.
Question: What areas of your life are you overusing a good thing?
Links:
What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction
YOML Podcast Discussion - The Demon Under the Microscope
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