BMJ  2004;328:531 (28 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7438.531-a

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SOUNDINGS

Weapons of mass destruction

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The agricultural revolution was the first quantum leap in manipulating the environment and the industrial revolution was the second. The medical revolution is the third. Domestication, the harnessing of stored energy, and the eradication of hostile species were necessary before man could invade all niches on earth and multiply. The securement of man's biosphere began with the battle against lion and bear and wolf. Now the biological enemies are microscopic and submicroscopic—and our heroes are Jenner and Pasteur and Fleming rather than Theseus, who slayed the Minotaur, Perseus, the killer of Medusa, or Hercules, the accomplished exterminator of dangerous megafauna.

Our biological, chemical, and physical warfare against multitudes of living things is not only directed against those species that invade humans, but also against their vectors, pathogens to our domestic animals and plants, the vectors of these pathogens, and all living things which compete with us and our stock or . . . [Full text of this article]

Nairobi Hospital Proceedings, Kenya

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