The flu bug has attacked!!

The doctor confirmed it. With a swab stick stuck quickly and not pleasantly deep in the back of the nose, analyzed and retrieved, our physician announced: “You have the Type A Infulenza.”

But, what is “influenza” and where did it come from, anyway?

The word “influenza” is Italian for “influence.” The idiomatic context is that of influencing on a grand or cosmic or “epidemic” scale. In 1743, it appears people got really sick in Europe from a fever that had started in Italy and spread. This spreading fever was referred to as “influenza di catarro,” meaning an “outbreak of the catarrhal fever.” The Italians had apparently been using “influenza” to describe their grand colds and fevers since around 1504, but that 1743 epidemic was apparently a doozy, got everyone’s attention, and popularized the use of term “influenza” to describe an epidemic outbreak of a very bad and dangerous cold.

“Flu,” of course, is just a short form of “influenza.” I don’t know if the Italians every used “flu” in the 16th through 18th centuries, but that is what we commonly call influenza today.

But, where did it come from, really?

Well, the Italians thought influenza came from the sky. It began out there somewhere, among the distant stars. We think we know today that flu comes from viruses. We also think that the flu viruses originally came from birds and pigs and were transmitted to humans. We humans pass the viruses around and between ourselves when we cough and touch. Very nasty stuff, those viruses.

But, is that really all the story.

And, what, on earth, is a virus?

The short answer for “virus” is, “No one really knows?”

Let’s look at the longer answer. A virus looks somewhat like a living cell, but it has no brain (no nucleus), it can’t grow on its own, and it can’t make its own energy. To replicate and make more of itself, the virus must invade one of your cells and trick your cell’s machinery into making a bunch of new look-alike viruses. Now all those new viruses (none with a brain) escape your first cell (likely with very real damage to that cell) and attack more of your other living cells. The virus, now viruses, is on a roll and is using you to make more look-alike viruses. Your body does not like this and attacks back. Now you are sick from your damaged cells and all your defensive efforts. The process goes on-and-on and can cascade into a full-fledged, all-out war. Now, you are even sicker. Most bodies win and you recover. Unfortunately, it is estimated that some 300,000 to 500,000 people world-wide die each year from the flu and related causes.

All this hurt, damage and pain because of something without a brain.

We have no real answer. In 1938, Jonas Salk helped to develop the first flu vaccine, but this is not a cure. The flu shot lets your body recognize certain flu virus from dead viruses in the vaccine. This gives your body a headstart to prepare to fight back if and when the virus attacks. Wonderful stuff, the flu shot, but not the full answer to the “virus problem.”

What is the answer to the “virus problem”? The answer may be built into the structure of the virus itself. The virus has no real brain. Perhaps the answer is: Find the brain and you can stop the viruses at their source. Maybe, somewhere, there is a master cell, with a brain, that designs the viruses to do their work without individual brains.

Find the brain. Stop the virus.

I like that. The problem is we don’t know where that master design cell resides. It could be in the birds and pigs from which we believe the viruses were first transmitted to humans. Or, it could be somewhere else.

Back to those Italians, one of the more ancient meanings of the origin-word “influenza” is a visitation or influence from the stars. Could it be that the origin of the flu virus is somehow extraterrestrial? This sounds a bit like science fiction, but sometimes the old stories can have a very modern and successful application.

Whatever the answer is, it is not “Run for your lives!” We cannot escape the viruses among us, and flu shots are only a temporary and partial response. If a spacecraft can land on the dark side of the moon, perhaps there is a hidden side of the “virus problem” that has yet to be explored.

Until then, we’ll take our medications, rest, drink plenty of fluids and wait for the battles to stop and our cells to declare victory.

Still, it would be comforting to know where those pesky viruses really did come from and maybe stop them at their source.

Who knows?

Grandpa Jim

Post Script: What about another approach? Maybe, someone could put a nucleus, a brain, into a virus. Maybe too, that someone could program the new virus brain so the new virus would be the “Smart Virus.” Mr. Smart would tell the other viruses to “Get out of town.” And, they would, to some other place or planet or galaxy. Maybe, that was how we got them in the first place. Perhaps, with viruses, fair is fair and far is better — really far, far away. Say, how about the “Gosh I’m Lost” Galaxy in the “Too Far From Here” Constellation? It would be a road trip, but they are viruses (without brains), and besides, we have had them long enough. Don’t you think?