We humans have never lived in a bacterially sterile world, aworld free of disease-causing germs. Nor dare we envision afuture time when infectious disease will have retreated to historybooks lest we join those past civilizations that relied solelyon fanciful illusions.During the last millennium there have been three lethalpandemics, killing millions of souls. The great bubonic plaguecommencing in 1346, sometimes called the Black Death, alteredthe economy of 14th Century Europe, presaging the endof its feudal economy and witnessing the hesitant beginnings ofmore diversified farming, and in cities, cottage industries. Theplague killed perhaps one fourth of the European population.The second communicable disease tragedy was the awesomeinfluenza pandemic commencing in the summer of 1918and killing in excess of 50 million people within 18 months.And we are in the midst of a third global pestilence, AIDS.
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