Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

Archive for February 9, 2014

Patients in Iron Lungs during a polio epidemic, ca. 1952.

M3oSmjlAnd this is why you should vaccinate your kids. We didn’t spend all that time, money, and suffering developing a vaccine, for you to decide doctors don’t know what they’re talking about.

(Figurative you, not actually you.)


Rows of infected people assembled into warehouses suffering from 1918 Influenza Pandemic. A total of 50-100 million people were killed, ca.1918.

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The 1918 flu was unusual in that it heavily affected the young and the healthy. “Normal” influenza mostly kills the weak/elderly. This flu, however, induced what is known as a cytokine storm in those who were strong and healthy— basically your immune system would freak out and go into a positive feedback loop and drown you with fluid and white blood cells in the lungs.