Final Demo 3

Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Principles of Immunopharmacology, 2011

There is widespread recognition that we are now at the beginnings of the so-called post-antibiotic era. This is, in short, the time in which an increasing number of antibiotic medicines stop working because many types of bacteria have become resistant to them. The development of this resistance is a natural feature of living organisms that have to adapt to changes in the environment. The generally accepted view is that antibiotic resistance is the result of decades of unnecessary consumption of antibiotics for minor infections and the widespread use of antibiotics in meat production. With the effectiveness of these antibiotics waning, people may also be struggling with infections and losing their limbs and lives because of the lack of research and development in the medical field, a field now mainly driven by profit interests. A survey of 11 large pharmaceutical companies, reported by Hausler, around 12 years ago revealed that only 1.25% of all substances developed were antibacterial drugs attributed to the skimpy profits in this sector. The solutions suggested to address this crisis predictably include the cessation of the use of antibiotics in the meat production, the belated wise use of antibiotics, and, of course, the development of new drugs. Viewing these measures as useful but not sufficient, I am suggesting in this paper that antibiotic resistance should be viewed as a compelling challenge to reexamine some of the unsustainable beliefs held in conventional medicine and the general public. Space permitting, I will only be able to present here a small number of arguments in the hope that an ensuing discussion will further elucidate the salient issues. Human beings are hosts of trillions of bacteria. In healthy people, these organisms live in symbiosis with us as much as our bodies are trillions of cells living in symbiotic and collaborative relationships, a phenomenon that Lynn Margulis has called endosymbiosis [1]. These bacteria fulfil important tasks such as enabling us to digest food while they nurture themselves in the process, a scenario called mutualism. It is also well known that many people are so-called carriers harbouring highly infectious microorganisms in their bodies, often infecting others without getting sick themselves (commensalism). Both these scenarios demonstrate that our immunity more than the presence of microorganisms, determines whether or not we are symptomatic or asymptomatic carriers of germs, that is, whether we are actually sick or not. Why, then, is it that conventional medicine rarely emphasises the importance of immunity and mutualistic relationships among organisms, but keeps portraying microorganisms as villains out to kill and maim us? Here we can see that we are all subjected to a societal paradigm of enemy-making and heroic fights against what are perceived as evil forces. The current paradigm urges us to 'fight' terrorists, Bashir Assad, Kim Jong-un, ISIS, Cancer, addictions, the drug trade, and possibly even people believing in climate change. The metaphors of war, competition, and one-upmanship have been the dominant paradigm for such a long time that it will require a fundamental paradigm shift to make people aware of the necessity to adopt a collaborative and ecologically sustainable worldview if we are to survive long-term as a species

Those who received their biomedical education around 1960 could not even have suspected that one of the most significant revolutions in life-sciences was taking place at that time: the transformation of serology-centered immunology into immunobiology [1]. Students could not have possibly been informed about this, as the university textbooks at that time were only allowed to contain solid, well-established facts of science, notably those that had survived at least a decade without being refuted. Thus little wonder that the students missed out the birth of immunobiology. As a matter of fact, immunology at that time was not considered as a science in its own right, it usually occupied a single chapter in the students' microbiology textbook, describing at most vaccination, antibodies, serological reactions, and the use of antibodies for typing of bacteria. The most sophisticated piece of science included was the description of how to render antisera 'monospecific' by sequential absorption. Concerning the possible nature and origin of antibodies, a single laconic statement was made, namely that they were localized in the gamma-globulin fraction of serum, implying cautiously that not all gamma-globulins were necessarily antibodies. Indeed, the bulk of gamma-globulins was thought to represent 'normal' serum proteins that were probably produced in the liver (by the motto that substances of unknown nature and origin are best to be blamed on the liver; nota bene, even old, conservative textbooks could contain not all that solid facts!). Naturally, nothing about the cellular basis of immunity passed the inclusion criteria, since the first discoveries in this direction were at most a couple of years old.

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2022

The immune system is most likely developed to reduce the harmful impact of infections on the host homeostasis. This defense approach is based on the coordinated activity of innate and adaptive immune system components, which detect and target infections for containment, killing, or expulsion by the body's defense mechanisms. These immunological processes are responsible for decreasing the pathogen burden of an infected host to maintain homeostasis that is considered to be infection resistance. Immune-driven resistance to infection is connected with a second, and probably more important, defensive mechanism: it helps to minimize the amount of dysfunction imposed on host parenchymal tissues during infection without having a direct adverse effect on pathogens. Disease tolerance is a defensive approach that relies on tissue damage control systems to prevent infections from causing harm to the host. It also uncouples immune-driven resistance mechanisms from immunopathology and diseas...

Euphytica, 2002

Plants can be induced to switch on defense reactions to a broad range of pathogens as a result of prior exposure to pathogens or to various chemicals or physical stress. Induced resistance is expressed locally, at the site of the infection or systemically, at sites remotely located from the initial infection. Upon recognition of the initial stimulus by the plant,

2010

In 2008, Dr. Khoruts, a gastroenterologist at the University of Minnesota, took on a patient suffering from a vicious gut infection of Clostridium difficile. She was crippled by constant diarrhea, which had left her in a wheelchair wearing diapers. Dr. Khoruts treated her with an assortment of antibiotics, but nothing could stop the bacteria. His patient was wasting away, losing 60 pounds over the course of eight months.“She was just dwindling down the drain, and she probably would have died,” Dr. Khoruts said.

PLOS Biology, 2012

Understanding how organisms fight infection has been a central focus of scientific research and medicine for the past couple of centuries, and a perennial object of trial and error by humans trying to mitigate the burden of disease. Vaccination success relies upon the

Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 2024

The Jesuit China mission coincided with a sophisticated attempt to place Chinese and Western concepts of human nature in dialogue with Confucianism. The Jesuits believed that they could facilitate evangelization by drawing upon Confucian concepts to explain the soul. In so doing, they and their Chinese collaborators also pioneered a genre of hybrid philosophical texts, which used Aristotelian conceptions of the soul to critique and supplement autochthonous Chinese conceptions of human nature. These texts are not just of significance for Chinese Christian theology, but also anthropology, psychology, and even medicine, given the role played by the soul in both Chinese and Western conceptions of human physiology at the time. Until recently these texts have been little studied except by missiologists who were more interested in their relevance for mission history than for comparative philosophy. Scholarship has perhaps also been hampered by the immense linguistic demands of studying texts that sit between the Chinese and Western intellectual traditions. Recently, however, a number of Chinese scholars have turned their attention to these texts, intrigued by novel philosophical ideas contained therein and their complex relationship to both the Western and Chinese intellectual and religious traditions. Since many of these Chinese-language contributions are published in volumes which are not easily accessible outside of China, they have not enjoyed great visibility in Western-language scholarship. This article will review the major developments in Chinese scholarship and will conclude with suggestions for future research.