Publications

Medical Scribblings - June 25 / 2001

Recently there have been a number of reports in the scientific press about the virtues of dirt. Yes, all those nasty bugs may be good for us after all.

In a world where everything is Detoxed, sterilized and cellophane wrapped funny things start to happen.

Our bodies are designed to cope with a world full of beasties that are trying to live off us and once these are taken away our immune system starts to look for other things to do. It over reacts to stimuli and attacks parts of ourselves causing what are known as auto – immune diseases. Allergic conditions in particular are on the increase.

The problem is how to deal with this new state of affairs. It would not be any good returning to a world where people died from simple infections but on the other hand there seems to be a good case not to wrap oneself up in cotton wool. There do not appear to be any easy answers at the moment but it is a fascinating area and I may well return to it in the future.

John Schofield