VIDEO: A SHORT HISTORY OF GERMS

In this video, Joe Alton MD discusses a short history of something that’s been on our planet for billions of years: microbes! Of course, most microbes are perfectly harmless, but some can kill you.

A few can cause worldwide pandemics, like Yersinia Pestis, the bacteria that caused the Black Plague. Yersinia lived on fleas that lived on rats that lived among humans, and still causes cases in various parts of the world (including a few in the U.S.).

In order to understand disease-causing germs (also called pathogens), it’s useful to know where they came from, how we humans came to realize they were there, and that they could cause disease. Dr. Alton talks about how we came to realize that we shared the planet with things we couldn’t even see.

To watch, click below:

Wishing you the best of health in good times or bad,

Joe Alton MD

Learn all about infectious disease on or off the grid in the latest edition of the Survival Medicine Handbook: The Essential Guide for When Medical Help is Not on the Way, 1st place winner of the Book Excellence Award in medicine.