I’m one of those people who gets a kick out of scientific findings that raise the possibility that the old-timers who came up with those adages that make us giggle or roll our eyes may have known more than we thought. While some scientists willingly credit the old-timers with the discovery, others imply that they have discovered something nobody ever noticed… sort of like explorers “discovering” waterfalls, wild plants or animals that the local residents have known about for years.
The idea of natural vaccines, i.e. those that evolved as part of the natural world, has intrigued me since I learned about how the milkmaids’ exposure to cowpox protected them from the more deadly smallpox. When the feline leukemia virus was identified, I was intrigued by theories regarding its origins. Why were we suddenly seeing this disease in the area where I worked? The theory that appealed to me most was that the feline leukemia virus mutated from the mouse one. While my medical training argued that this was an excellent reason to insist that all cats stay indoors and not be exposed to those diseased mice, my more ecologically-attuned biological background wondered whether the loss of mouse exposure the local cat population experienced as it made the transition from mouser to household pet contributed to the problem. In other words, did those mice the cats hunted and consumed serve as nature’s version of a live virus vaccine?
As often happens, once a vaccine is developed and policy formulated, people tend to lose interest in alternative explanations. Still, that incident further fueled the possibility that natural vaccines do exist. Consequently, I’m always on the lookout for other possible candidates.
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