In a recent talk, Carl Zimmer highlighted how the public acceptance of airborne disease theory was hampered by the unappealing personalities of some researchers, particularly William Firth Wells. His book, "Air-Borne: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe," details the historical understanding of pathogens in the air, contrasting it with earlier beliefs about miasmas. Zimmer points out that, despite significant advancements by scientists like Louis Pasteur, airborne transmission remained neglected, linking diseases primarily to food, water, and sexual contact instead.
"Air has always been captivating and mysterious to us," said Zimmer as he walked the audience through the main thread of his book: the discovery - and ultimate acceptance - of the concept that pathogens can be transmitted through the air.
Even more than a century after the discovery of microbes, in the 1830s when cholera struck Europe, the idea that the disease was transmitted through the air was not taken seriously.
But air continued to be overlooked in responses to disease outbreaks. Again and again these diseases were linked to microorganisms that were spread in food, in water, through sex ... but not in the air.
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