If you’ve ever wondered why the symbol of health is a snake spiraling a staff (the Greek god Asclepius’s staff to be specific), it’s because in Ancient Greece they used small amounts of snake venom to treat serious illnesses
"Researchers have developed", yeah. When I read such things, I always recall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimerox - this thing promised wonders - very broad spectrum, very low toxicity - and, most importantly, it was targeting a conservative essential protein - so nearly zero resistance. And there were no updates for more than a decade.
Something developed in a lab is something we, most likely, will never see - and will never know why the thing didn't reach the 2nd stage (or the 1st).
This is because a broad spectrum antibiotic with low resistance is an essential public good that will likely rapidly be made generic by either legal action or international disregard for copyright law. So no major pharma companies will want to invest resources into the development of something like this, and governments are not under the gun enough to produce new abx to invest the billions needed to get it through the approval process. The compromise is to leave it sitting at this phase until some disaster creates enough public incentive to socialize the completion of its development.
If you’ve ever wondered why the symbol of health is a snake spiraling a staff (the Greek god Asclepius’s staff to be specific), it’s because in Ancient Greece they used small amounts of snake venom to treat serious illnesses
We’ve come full circle
It seems that it's quire more complicated than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus_as_a_symbol_of_medici...
I thought it’s a stick to pull out a tape worm. You wrap it around the work and keep twisting to get it out.
I’m partial to the Guinea worm medical symbol theory, though happy to be convinced otherwise.
I suspect the symbol has deeper roots than that, though you are likely right about the snake venom being used then to treat illness.
We also recently (we think) discovered why acupuncture works. That form of medicine from 4000 years ago...
Huh. We did? Could you share a link to a paper? Curious to find out about the "why".
Do you happen to have a source for that? I’d love to check it.
It's the New York Times article that's linked to in this HN post about “the Interstitium”:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095536
"Researchers have developed", yeah. When I read such things, I always recall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimerox - this thing promised wonders - very broad spectrum, very low toxicity - and, most importantly, it was targeting a conservative essential protein - so nearly zero resistance. And there were no updates for more than a decade.
Something developed in a lab is something we, most likely, will never see - and will never know why the thing didn't reach the 2nd stage (or the 1st).
This is because a broad spectrum antibiotic with low resistance is an essential public good that will likely rapidly be made generic by either legal action or international disregard for copyright law. So no major pharma companies will want to invest resources into the development of something like this, and governments are not under the gun enough to produce new abx to invest the billions needed to get it through the approval process. The compromise is to leave it sitting at this phase until some disaster creates enough public incentive to socialize the completion of its development.
https://archive.ph/1fAzz
"keep in mind, so does a handgun"[0]
[0] https://xkcd.com/1217/