ON BATS, BAT CAVES, EVOLUTION AND PANDEMICS

The Horseshoe bat is now infamous as the source of the virus which has caused the tragic covid 19 pandemic.  It is well documented by genetic studies that these bats were the reservoir for the virus.  Thus it may be of interest to know something about these critters—and how they evolved to infect others of the same species—which have in some way brought down the wrath of Mother Nature on a world society which was intent on thumbing its nose at Mother Nature.  

These bats are part of a group of “microbats”—belonging to the genus Rhinolophus (meaning “crested nose”.) This critter is a native of China, Asia, Africa and  Europe.  Horses bats  are small—about the size of a humming bird- with a wingspan of only six inches.  They weigh almost twice as much as hummingbirds at  about one ounce (@ 28 grams).  The wings are broader and shorter than other bats, making them well adapted to the cluttered, tight spaced environments where they hunt for insects and spiders among vegetation.  They use the near continuous sound generated by an organ.within their nose for echolocation .  The reception of the echoes is enhanced by the unusual horseshoe shaped nose flaps which give them their common name: ‘horseshoe bat”.   They hunt for insects and arachnids which they take in the air or swoop down on from a perch.  Like most bats they fly at night and during the day roost in caves, tree hollows and buildings.  Those that hibernate favor caves with temperatures of about 50 degrees F ( @10 C) 

How did these tiny bats become a source of a human virus?  The answer is that even though very small (unbelievably) they are used as a source of food as well as the basis of several home medicine concoctions by several groups of people in Asia and parts of Africa.  In addition, the  bat guano of this family is often collected—from caves—for use in cosmetics and medicines  in China and elsewhere in the Old World.  These activities no doubt brought the bats and their virus carrying body fluids into contact with humans.  

We know that this group the Horseshoe bat (especially a species known as the Chinese Rufous Horsehoe Bat) is a source for several species of coronaviruses and in particular the Covid19 virus which has caused the 2019 pandemic.  At the time of this writing Covid 19 has caused nearly 3 million cases of flu worldwide and well over 200,000 death.   In the USA, there have been over a million cases  and over 50,000 deaths to date.  The social chaos both medical and economic has been tragic. 

It is uncertain how the Covid 19 virus passed from one or more species of Horseshoe bats to infect humans.  Some claim that the bat virus may have first infected other animals ( a wild feline known as the Palm Civet, or the an unusual scaly wild mammal—the Pangolin). The bats as well as the other wild animals possibly infected by bats have  been used as food, or “medicines”in China and in that way, either by handling the animals, keeping them in cages and living or working in close proximity to the caged animals before they were killed for consumption, or during transportation, or for other purposes —the virus was transmitted to humans—in or near Wuhan China.  Once humans were infected in China —the virus—finding suitable conditions for reproduction—rapidly infected others and spread world wide. 

But what we do know with certainty is the the Covid19 virus evolved in bats. This fact has been confirmed by numerous genetic studies of the virus’ RNA/DNA.    We can assume that the process of Darwinian evolution and adaptation to its environment and the survival of the most efficient forms resulted in a viral entity that was most effectively adapted to pass its genetic material  from one bat host to another— most likely in the crowded roosting caves. 

Bats—like humans—do not live solitary lives.  They forage  at night singly—in flight —catching insects on the wing or swooping down on insects or spiders on leaves or branches.  During the day they congregate  in congested communal roosts in caves, buildings or hollow trees.  That is where this virus evolved: in congested. enclosed places with still relatively dry air.

It was in these enclosed confined environments that the virus must have evolved to infect its bat hosts by efficiently passing from one bat to another by means of respiratory transmission in the confined spaces. Transmission by aerosols in these places is a most effective means of infection.   

As the bats roosted—in close proximity to others—their exhalations produced  droplets of saliva that would be lofted into the still air. These could be then inhaled by other bats roosting near-by.  Under the right conditions of cave temperature and  humidity these droplets could slowly evaporate, loosing moisture to the surrounding  air by evaporation, making the droplets  smaller and lighter, (and thus more likely to remain lofted longer). This would increase their chance of being inhaled by other more distant bats and would be selected for .  Over time evolution likely favored those viruses which might survive being subjected to low humidity, (drying conditions) that would leave the virus  suspended in the air with little or no moisture —or with only the minuscule  viral particle which could remain in even still air for very long periods of time.  Such an evolutionary course would make it  many times more effective in transmission to other bat hosts even further away in the roost and would favor those characteristics over others. 

Such evolutionary adaptations in the Horseshoe bat virus made it particularly well adapted— perhaps we can say “preadapted”—for efficiently infecting other hosts with similar life ways: i.e. living in crowded enclosed spaces in close proximity to others. 

We humans live like bats!

In some circumstances we live like bats.  Regularly crowding ourselves into small congested rooms in close proximity to others, in airplane fuselages, closed classrooms, crowded tenements, and subway cars where humans are exhaling aerosols which can then be inhaled by others near-by. This is an ideal circumstance for the virus which evolved in the Horseshoe bats. 

The coronovirus covid 19 when it became a zoonosis (a disease which can be transmitted from animals to human). Upon entering human hosts it grew in population very much like an invasive species. It found a “new environment” with no existing controls on its expansion and a practically unlimited supply of hosts.almost 7 billion of them.  It’s population soared just like any other alien invasive species. (The infamous Cottontail Rabbit plague of Australia is a particularly interesting case.   In 1788 colonists introduced 24 English cottontail into Victoria,  Australia  and within 30 years the entire continent was overrun with rabbits. Recurrent “rabbit plagues” have continued in Australia up to modern times.  At its peak in 1910 there were estimated 10 billion rabbits in Australia. Today  after many decades of extermination and introduction of specific rabbit diseases the rabbit population is estimated there are at a mere 200 million.) 

So knowing this we can perhaps better understand how to control the transmission of the virus in humans.  Aware that this virus has evolved to transmit its genetic material by means of  aerosols which enter the air and may remain lofted for long periods of time—the loft time being dependent upon temperature, humidity, solar radiation, and air flow patterns—then while floating in the air may be inhaled by other hosts.  Just like in the bat cave. 

Thus we must avoid enclosed crowded places —virtual bat caves—where potential carriers may have introduced the virus into the air we breathe.  Enclosed places where aerosols produced by carrier-hosts can remain lofted in the air and thus become possible vectors of disease.  Since at this time we are not certain who is a carrier and who is not, we must assume that everyone is a possible carrier.  

It is clear that our habits and proclivities to maximize the profits of a few by jamming as many people as we can into tight seats on airplanes, crowded sports stadia, bulging classrooms, over crowded restaurants, massive music festivals, and the abomination of disgusting cruise ships which carry huge crowds confined in tight quarters where germs are so efficiently dispersed then debouching these disease racked individuals at ports of —“tourist cities” around the  world to spread disease and pandemics .  All this will have to end—if we want to survive as a nation.  

Let’s be clear.  There is no possibility of eliminating the threat caused by OUR dangerous habits of crowding—even if we find a cure and a vaccine for covid-19–there are hundreds of others similar viruses out there lurking and evolving in the biosphere-that will take advantage of a society which attempts to thumb its nose at Mother Nature.  A society which foolishly ignores the biological imperatives of the natural world—to avoid crowds—and still survive.  

Our lives will have to change drastically if we are to survive this biological threat.  For now it is imperative that we wear masks to  substantially reduce the release of  aerosols our that may carry the virus and infect others.  Even if we think we are not sick—the disease has a long period of asymptomatic early stages which give us no warning of infection.  We do not know if we are sick.  In addition  there are many cases of of only minor symptoms  or asymptomatic carriers.   

We must all avoid crowded locations where body fluids may be aerosolized to float in the air that we breathe and where they can remain under some circumstances for very long periods of time.  

We must also be aware of the other means of transmission by viruses which may survive on surfaces which are touched by others.  Wearing gloves does not mean that your hands are sterile.  That sterility lasts only a short time after you have removed the gloves from the box.  

We thumb our nose at Mother Nature at our own peril.  

               

ON SOAP, HISTORY, AND HANDWASHING

In the coronavirus lockdown days we have all been washing our hands so much one sometimes falls into a hand washing reverie.   Besides red hands and cracked skin —it seems I often find myself  drifting off mentally during the  20 seconds needed generate the lovely bubbles and lather to fully get the soap into those deep cracks on old, arthritic and hard working hands.  On more than one hand washing occasions I imagined events relating to the long and intimate history humans  have with common soap.

As the lather formed and the hot water gurgled down the drain I imagined  how the origin of our relationship with soap may have happed— some 50,000 years ago.  Perhaps it was at a prehistoric Neanderthal campsite in sunny southern France—on a steep rocky hillside where a jumble of fallen rocks had formed a small enclosure on a wide ledge in front of the dark, gaping  mouth of a limestone cave.  

In my reconstruction a family group of Neanderthal hunters had taken up residence at the cave site.  On this imagined day the men of the group set out on a hunt  and coming upon the spoor of game near-by followed the cloven-hoof tracks and places of gouged up soil, the signs of a wild boar— into a near-by forest.  Hunting cooperatively they sent two of their group ahead as the remainder turned to hallowing and noisemaking to  drive the grunting beast  toward the two members hidden and waiting behind a thicket.  The two men, their stout spear shafts, tipped with long finely formed chert stone points, at the ready waited in silence.  As the beast rushed passed their hide-out they struck.  The large adult boar— it’s bristly haired  hide pierced  with two darts, the shafts dangling and bobbing as it ran, did not go far before it collapsed.  The hunters quickly found it and  with the beast, which they had heaved to their shoulders  slung from a stout length of an oak branch they carried  the hairy tusker back to camp.  

There, the old boar was butchered and large chunks of its fatty meat,  pierced by thick wood skewers,  was set over a deep bed of glowing hardwood coals . As the smoke rose and the meat charred over the hot fire, members of the band, unable to resist the aroma, and their mouth’s watering in anticipation, stooped to pick from the ground discarded flakes of razor sharp chert. These  fragments, scatted on the ground and the result of the near continuous process of stone tool making in a Neolithic camp site could be likened to our kitchen knife drawer.  Each member grasping the dull side of the chert or flint flake in his hand and tipping his face away from the flames, approached and gingerly sliced at the hot meat with the sharp stone fragment,  detaching choice morsels of the still blood-red steaming meat.  They grunted in satisfaction  as the pieces they chose,  glistening  with fat from the glow of the fire, disappeared  rapidly  between their lips; lips partly hidden by their dark curly beards.   Slowly, as each member cut away more portions, sharing them with other members of their family, only ragged remnants  of the skin, bones and joints remained suspended over the fire. The now sated band slowly  retired toward the cave mouth  or collapsed in stupor to  stare dumbly at the fire where the coals slowly cooled and darkness of a starry night descended on the cave site and its occupants. 

The night cooled and below a star studded sky the glow of the fire diminished but the remnant  heat at the fire pit continued to render the solid white  fat from the scraps of meat and charred skin still set over the fire pit.  The fat dripped  into the coals—now and then  causing the fire to flare up into a yellowish light.  Through much of the night the slow drip of rendered boar fat accumulated into a small puddle among the gray, powdery-ash covered coals.  By morning the fire pit had cooled and the fat throughly mixed with ash had congealed into a sticky, viscous gray material studded with scattered  fragments of charcoal. 

The day dawned cloudy and an early rain  rain kept the small band huddled together  at the mouth of the cave. By noon, the sun broke through the clouds and its radiant heat warmed the rocks around the now cold fire pit and this warm cozy place attracted the younger members of the band.  

One of the female youngsters—perhaps her empty stomach rumbling—sought out  the now soaked fire pit where this minor, was attracted to a crispy piece of meat still attached to the sharpened  end of the wood skewer.   The child  pulled the stake from the pit.  She noticed that something with an unusual appearance remained adhering to the base of the stick.  The substance  was gray with specks of charcoal.  Touching revealed that it was soft and sticky with a pleasant smooth, slippery feel to it.  The child rubbed the gray gritty goo between her hands.  The slippery feel remained even as she slid her hands repeatedly over the roe-deer skin girdle she wore around her waist.   She ran off to the near by stream, where dipping  her hands in the cool running  water and rubbing them together , she saw  bubbles appear on her fingers—just is like those that she had seen form at base of waterfall just above the camp.  As the water ran over her hands the slippery feeling on her hands slowly disappeared as the water ran over them —but what also disappeared with the flowing water was the embedded stains of charcoal, soil and grease which had adhered to her hands from last nights feast. 

The youngster —enjoying the experience—ran back to the fire pit and taking up the gooey substance again repeated the whole cycle  again.  This time sharing her experience with her brother.  Then the other kids wanted to try it too.  

And so long ago arose our relationship with soap.  An informal one at first.  It took many more thousands of years before civilizations arose and the division of labor and specialization in occupations took place.  But give it time. 

Archeologists studying the earliest civilizations in the Middle East tell us that it was in Mesopotamia along the Euphrates River —perhaps 5000 years ago (about 2800BC) people in what would later become Babylonia (in modern day Iraq) were actually making soap on a large scale for use by the community. 

Evidences in the form of fragments of ceramic containers with faint remains of mixtures of wood ash and animal and plant fats indicate that Babylonians —almost  1000 years before the rise of the famous Hammurabi (the Code giver) —were making soap by mixing wood ash with fats in large vats..  Archeological evidence indicates that the use of this substance was not for personal hygiene, but more likely was a relatively strong (harsh?)  substance used to clean products like wool and other fibers prior to use in manufacture of textiles.   As well as cleaning textiles such as wool,  soap with its “slippery feel” was also used as a lubricant to “grease’ wheel hubs on carts or wagons, or to decrease friction on moving parts in primitive machinery.  

We find similar stories of soap use in Egypt, Greece and Rome.  In these ancient times soap was not much in use for personal hygiene, but used as a lubricant and grease, oil and fat remover in the preparation of textiles and other cleaning processes. In Ancient Rome the gooey substance (as  Pliny the Elder @ 65AD) claims that soap was used as a hair pomade—but not for washing.  For personal hygiene, Romans preferred to rub olive oil into the skin and then remove the oil (and the dirt)  with a scraping tool called a strigil.  Only late in the Roman Empire did they begin to use “soap” probably getting the idea of its use from the Celts and Gauls who did—occasionally—bathe 

As a boy I was washed up in the bath with a harsh  brown soap called “Octagon Soap”.  The big brown bar had eight sides—thus the name.  It came wrapped up in paper—no big plastic containers for soap in those days.  The bar soap was practical and “green” it came in a paper wrapper and with use it slowly disappeared down the drain as it took the dirt away. All you had to dispose of was the little paper wrapper.  That went into the  box for fire-starting paper—so it was put to good use too.  Mother used a soap called Castile soap—it was made not with animal fats but with olive oil (and other oils too) and was more gentle on the skin.  the name was derived from Castile in Spain where this soap had its origins in the late Middle Ages. 

Also in my youth soap could be used to unfairly torture a boy—as punishment.  Perhaps  this unnamed youngster while eavesdropping on  elders conversation —hear them use a bad word and then this youngster—not knowing the meaning of said word —repeated it front of  mother or father.  A little bit of Octagon soap on the tongue would make that young nosey person  remember not to repeat that word again.  Or at least not to do so in the hearing of someone an authority  who had a bar of  soap handy. 

In the Middle Ages in the Arab World true soap was made using wood ashes and olive oils and other oils.  The soaps were made fragrant with the addition of oils extracted from flowers such as roses, lavender, mints and others.  

But what is it and how does it work? 

We all know that oils and water do not mix.  They are two different substances and stir and mix as hard as we might in a glass with oil and water the oil stays on top and the water (heavier) sinks to the bottom.  Soap is a substance having  properties of both oil and water.  The soap  molecule has two parts —one end that will dissolve in oil and the other end of the same molecule that will dissolve in(or be attracted to) water.  That is the key to its usefulness. 

Soap is prepared—as noted above__ by mixing an alkali (a chemical base) with a fat or oil  so as to cause the two to chemically interact.  The reaction produces a new substance —a new molecule neither oil or water but with characteristics of both. 

The strong base or alkali found in wood ashes is the substance  combines with the oil or fat to produce the soap molecule.  That word “alkali” is by the way that is another one of those fairly common  words we get from the Arabic—from the word “al qaly” which means “ash”. 

The fact that soap can dissolve into fats but is also able to attach to water molecules is what causes the process of bubble formation  (the lathering process) so obvious  when one washes one’s hands.  Water molecules are attracted to each other  (they “like” to stick together)  so when you wash your hands with soap the long tail (oil side) of the soap molecule that is attracted to fats  dissolves in the soiled surface on your skin.  The other end of the soap molecule —the water attracting side—tends to attach to other water molecules.    The attraction of the oil  molecules to each other is less than the attraction the water molecules  have for each other.  Thus the fats and oils are pulled off of your skin by the soap molecule  and are carried away with the water.  

Another process going on is that soap produces bubbles when air is trapped in the water-soap mixture.  The lather formed in the process, actually helps to lift and carry off the tiny particles of “dirt” by driving them to the top surface of the bubbles—through a microscope you can see each bubble with a tiny piece of debris on its top surface— and in this way the dirt particles  are lifted up and sloughed off as the lather is washed away with the flowing water.  

Soap’s capacity to dissolve and carry away fats as well as the bubbling action which helps loft particulates and carry these away is why soap is such a good cleaning agent.  In certain cases soap can act to kill germs too.    In the case of certain viruses soap’s attraction for fats can pull apart the fatty sheath that surrounds the  virus’ interior structure. When the fatty covering is removed the interior of the virus where the  RNA or DNA is stored is then exposed to the action of water, air or other denaturing chemicals which destroy it.  So soap has the ability in some circumstances kill viruses.

And that ends our soapy reverie—I hope you all think about these things even if its only for those 20 seconds or so—while the lather is building up and the little bubbles are searching out the embedded viruses and other dirt in the fine cracks and crevices in your hands.  

   

ON THE SHADBUSH AND JUNEBERRY—and fish.

April 19, 2020 

  

I call them the “ghost trees” of April—their white flowered  branches grow in an irregular and loose pattern —seeking sun below the taller trees—and reach to only twenty feet or so.  In summer, they lie hidden and all but forgotten  in the thick greenery.  One knows of them only if one cruises in the forest of the heady early days of spring.  It’s on these days in late April.  they appear like winter’s ghosts-white wisps of drifting fog  on wooded hillsides and bottom lands among the leafless, dark and tangles branches outlined against the sky.  Their  snow-like flowers stand in contrast to the pervasive dull brown of brush and tree.  

These “ghost trees” are the  Shadbush of North America (Amelanchier canadensis)   The common name, Shadbush is derived from the fact that the tree’s flowering period coincides with the seasonal run of the shad a fish like the salmon which lives much of its life in the ocean and swims up rivers all along the east coast to breed.  The association of the blooming  Shadbush and the run up river of the Shad was important to the early colonist and Native Americans both.  Both were important food sources for the Native Americans gathering foods in the forest who would mentally record the location of the blooming Shadbush so as to know just where to revisit the site in June when the trees would be inconspicuous but the berries would have ripened.  And that coincidence of timing must have been one reason for the common name used by our early colonists—who also exploited both the fish and the berries of this tree.   The tree has a native range from Canada all through the eastern half of  North America from Main to Alabama. And as one might expect with a species with such a diverse and wide range of occurrence, many different folk applied names that stuck so it is called: Shadbush, Serviceberry, Bilberry, and Juneberry and all suggest its usefulness.  

By early May—in our woods— the white petals fall and drift with the breezes like a remarkably late woodland snow fall.  A special sight for only those who tramp the woods can enjoy.  The local bees, wasps and other insects have helped pollinate the flowers and by June the fruit—a tiny reproduction of an apple (the tree is a member of the Apple Family (Rosacea) reaching the size of a good sized blueberry forms where the flowers had bloomed.  The fruit ripens in June thus its other name “Juneberry”.  

The purple berries when ripe are are tart with a variable sweetness.  They are rich in vitamin C, fiber, and pectin and were collected by the native Americans as an important food source.  But one caveat—you must reach them when they ripen or lose them to the Robins, Bluejays, grackles and other species which quickly consume the fruit.  Some claim the local natives used the  mashed fruits to make pemmican—mixing the berries with other nutritious substances—often animal fat—to make what might be termed a Native American nutrition bar useful on long trips.

The flowers and leaves of the tree are said to have been used as a tea.  I have not tried that. But I do know that the wood is hard—like applewood—-and will burn to form  a nice bed of coals.  The wood is claimed to be useful for basketry, arrow shafts and other wood working purposes suitable for a hard, light colored wood. But the trees are small and its wood was probably only circumstantial use

So when you see the ghost trees of the forest in April, mark their location and revisit the site in June when the berries should be ripening.  You must get there before the birds do.  Then collect as many of the small reddish purple ripe fruits as you can.  Its likely that you will have to visit several trees to get enough to make a Juneberry Pie but the effort and the unique taste would be worth it.   But even if you simply have an opportunity—after the birds—to taste a few of the ripe fruit—like I have—and enjoyed the beauty of the tree in early Spring that would be enough.  But one can still be pleased to know that the avian exploitation of fruits insures that the seeds will be spread  far and wide through the forests and make certain that the ghost trees of April will continue to grace our hillsides with their white  blooms and remind us of the coming warmth of Spring. The white petal fall of late April and early May gives us pause —as the season warms and we have forgotten the snow and cold of winter—to give thanks for what has finally past and the sun and warmth that lies before us in July and August.  

In regard to the namesake of this tree the Shad—a fish. 

Yesterday (April 18, 2020) I found a fish—a Shad ( Alosa sapidisima)— a form of herring washed up on our Long Island Sound beach.  Not far away I spotted a Great Black-backed Gull in the swash zone of the beach pecking at another stranded Shad.  The fish was too big for the gull to consume whole so as I approached it was forced to pick up the limp, silvery fish and fly off awkwardly a short distance to another landing place—as it tried tear open the fish—its skin well armed with large thick scales .   So—I thought—“the shad run is on”!.  The Shad was an important food source for our native Algonquian peoples. During the Spring run they would construct weirs and traps that directed the large schools of these fish into traps woven of vines and brush where they could be collected.  The fish could be cooked and eaten fresh or dried and smoked over fires for consumption in the winter.  

On China: Its Dangerous Bats and Covid 19

We know well now that the Covid19 virus had its source in bats in the northern city of Wuhan in Hubei Province, China.  Some claim it was a Chinese virology lab,  Whuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in Hubei Province that may have accidentally permitted the escape of the virus, perhaps as a result of lax  safety precautions.  Others claim that a near-by  “wet market” a live animal meat market—combining the functions of a zoo, chicken coop, aquarium, fish market and abattoir all in one— in an enclosed crowded and unclean place was the source.  We do not know for sure.  Recently revealed are the cables from the US Embassy in Beijing which warned Washington DC in 2018 regarding the possible risky studies on bat and bat viruses at the WIV. 

But we do know that the corona virus strain is very similar to viruses which infect a species of Chinese bats which inhabit caves in northern China.   (The Chinese horseshoe bats Rhinolophus affinis). These animals are often kept alive in the so called  “wet markets” as food items).  It is quite certain  from well documented genetic studies of the Covid 19 virus DNA that the original source —the bat virus— evolved from a entity which was capable of infecting bats into a a new virus  that evolved surface attributes that permitted it to effectively overcome the barriers in the human cell membrane so as to  enter human cells and take over its metabolism and convert that cell material into duplicates of covid19 which are released when the cell dies and go on to infect other hosts.  Virologists have even established what physical changes took place in the surface “armaments” of the virus “shell” to make the changes possible.     

(Note the origin of that other epidemic—the 2013  SARS epidemic—-  is also related back  to a Chinese bat,  Rhinolophus sinicus also found in north China caves—which is thought to have transmitted  the virus to a wild cat —a civit- then to humans.  Contact with the bat guano collected in caves as a source of fertilizer may also cause infection. )

What is not known is the route that the virus took to do this.  One hypothesis is that a bat- specific  coronavirus  evolved novel armaments and outer shell characteristics while it inhabited the infected bats.  Then —through some natural or human agency-still unknown —this new virus with these now deadly characteristics  came to infect a human host —perhaps through respiratory means in a crowded wet market or by handling and eating the infected animal or collecting bat guano. (This hypothesis has been recently—4/18/20) supported by a Cambridge University study of the origins and mutations of the virus over time)

The second hypothesis is that the bat corona virus may have passed on first into a human host by similar means described above—then while in this new host evolved the novel characteristics which could make it more infectious and more deadly.   This is an important difference. 

And by what ever route it took —-that human host infected 4-5 others and each of those infected 4-5 other etc.etc, etc in a short period from late January to mid April the infections surged to encompass the world and to infect  more than 2 million known individuals . Presently (April 16, 2020) there are more than 2 million cases and 136,000 deaths worldwide. 

In the present time we do not know which route this corona virus may have taken to become a deadly highly infectious strain now known as Covid 19. 

What is troubling about this new information is if hypothesis one is correct, —the virus evolved into a deadly form in bats—then there remains in China- a pool of infected bats which are primed to infect humans again.  Practices in China, such as collecting and using bat guano, trapping and caging wild animals which are held in wet markets and sold as common food items in some communities are a Sword of Damocles held over the neck of the human population of this planet threatening repetitive death dealing pandemics  and economic disaster. 

We can not go back to treating China as if it was a—a favored nation—a nation on the par with France or Germany. China must be held at arms length.   I can not conceive of reestablishing flights to China or from China.  All those 350,000 students we have here can stay or go home but no more back and forth flights.  Those elite CEOs who offshores their factories and our jobs abroad—and the 0.1 percent of the top echelon earners who have fallen victim to the Siren call of the 1.4 billion “customers”” in China have been called like the sailors of Greek myth to their fate.  It’s Hades for them.  They made their big bucks—in the past— in off shoring their business interests—that encouraged and created this monster of China and hollowed  out our middle class and turned our manufacturing centers into dust and rust.  Now they must move their business back to the US and rehire the US worker or face the anger of all of us who have suffered through this Covid19 tragedy that is in part their making.  

And given the severity of this disease —in three months causing 140,000 painful and ugly deaths—closing down of the world economy as well as the personal other tragedies caused by isolation and fear—untold yet in the level of their effect and their extent at this time —we can not go back to “business as usual”.  

There can be no thought of free wheeling travel of old in crowded airports or of packing 350 people from all walks of life and all nations  into a narrow flying Petri dish aluminum tubes so they could share body fluids and viruses as they fly from one world city to another.  Or can one imagine pilling 2 or 3 thousand people into a floating virus lab called “Ocean Princess” or some other fanciful name which chugs around the world in its top heavy unstable shape to pour out it cargo of virus carriers to share their diseases with innocent inhabitants of port cities all around the world.  These are all prescriptions for continued disaster, in heath and in our economic stability.  

Can we ignore our southern border, cluster happily cheek by jowl in teeming overcrowded cities or gather safely in huge gymnasiums and ignore social spacing?  Not post covid 19.  

Not while the dangerous Chinese bats are still flying and carrying the death dealing covid 19. 

ΌN TOILET TISSUE, SHORTAGES, AND EPIDEMICS,

Somewhere in covid19 impacted, New York,  April 3, 2020

A neighbor reported a troubling incident in the parking lot of our local supermarket yesterday. An angry customer leaving the market walked toward his parked car.  Arriving near the center of the lot,  he stopped  and yelled out loudly to no one in particular:  ‘’Could  anyone— please tell me...where do I get some doggone toilet paper?. I’m desperate!”     

The shelves in the paper aisle—where stacks upon stacks  of this commodity were once  packed nearly to the ceiling, have  been empty  now for a good week.  If someone coughs somewhere in the store that is the aisle to head to—the paper aisle—you can be alone there.  Toilet tissue has become a rare and valuable commodity.  And is now simply unavailable anywhere.  One wonders what those  hoarders are doing with it?  One could only use so much at a time. 

As a senior citizen with a good memory I can’t remember a time in the past when toilet tissue was simply NOT AVAILABLE.  I can report that  I have almost never before encountered such a serious threat to sanitary propriety and personal comfort.  

It’s certainly not a paper shortage.  Here in the USA, our extensive forests have always provided  abundant  wood pulp to supply our massive needs for paper and toilet tissue and then some.  Sadly, to provide this needed commodity we must sacrifice living, mature, green  trees. They are cut in the prime of life from our  (carbon dioxide absorbing)  forests to produce the wood pulp for toilet tissue— which we dispose of so casually.  To produce a mere 200 rolls of the soft stuff manufactures must  sacrifice a tree that may have been growing and absorbing carbon from the atmosphere since before you were born.   It’s claimed that  Americans use almost 150 rolls per person each year.  That amounts to a lot of trees cut and forests diminished.  Some folks must be stockpiling the equivalent of several “a good wood lot worth” of TP in their basements, cubbies and closets.

I have to go back many decades into my youth in the years just after WWII and at a time of another great pandemic (Poliomyelitis) to recall a time when toilet paper was—perhaps not missing from the shelves—but was absent in my life. 

I was only a boy of nine or ten years old, during that other terrible disease epidemic—the Polio Epidemic (1940s-50s)   At the height of the “polio” fear and panic in the summer of 1949 my sister and I were sent to live with my grandfather in far off rural and socially isolated Smithtown, Long Island.  In those days eastern Long  Island was very much the land of open spaces, dominated by large estates, potato farms, and here and there small, scattered villages separated by  acres and acres of wooded lands.  

Grandfather (a widower) and his second wife (my step-grandmother) loved the country life.  Both had emigrated to the USA in their youth from affluent circumstances in Italy where as children they vacationed in their parent’s rural country homes.  Nostalgia for the past and the simpler life of  their childhood stimulated  them to attempt to recreate a country life style that in some ways recalled late 19^th century Europe .   

But beyond those motivations there was another.    Grandpa had great admiration for two men: one was our 3^rd President, Thomas Jefferson, on whom he was a minor scholar, and the other was Giuseppe Verdi, the Italian composer.  Grandfather took seriously Jefferson’s concept of the small landholder and yeoman farmer as the ideal citizen.  These individuals and their families were seen as  the backbone of a nation of free, independent, creative and productive citizens who would generate great wealth from their efforts working the land. Grandpa tried  to emulate what he considered to be the quintessential Jeffersonian American ideals of independence and self sufficiency in his own life.   The country home in Smithtown was his attempt at the recreation of these ideals, but  as well,  it functioned to relive a life style that my grandparents knew and loved as children.  

Their two-bedroom, gambrel-roofed bungalow was set among trees on two acres of level land with a wood lot, a large garden, an orchard and several outbuildings.  This isolated recreation of 19^th century living was the homestead where my sister and I ended up as refugees from the polio epidemic that summer in 1949.  The interior was comfortable and well appointed with nice but dated furnishings, but like a 19^th century European county home, it had no indoor plumbing and no electricity.   My sister and I slept in a spacious attic loft, reached by way of a narrow stairwell and trap door in the floor of the attic.  I remember well the  large kitchen and the  big, black, wood-fired stove. The kitchen sink had a hand pump that drew rain water from a cistern dug into the ground under the house.  

There was no indoor “bathroom”.  The “room” for that biological function was a  five by six foot frame structure with a gable roof and a rough wood door located about fifty feet from the house.  In the interior, a rough-wood bench seat  stretched from one side to the other.  Two white painted toilet seats  hid two “comfort” holes and acted to seal off the dark and deep interior—the functional element of the buidling.  Grandpa insisted that we keep the top seats in closed positions at all times. We always obeyed that rule.   The “outhouse” was just about invisible from the bungalow, located as it was  at the end of a narrow dirt path  in a grove of Mulberry and Poplar trees which always seemed to be growing more  luxuriantly than the others near-by.  

Since my grandparents did not drive, supplies were collected on a “desperate need basis” by means of a mile walk along the county road to the village and  the local  market.  Grandpa and I often made the trip together, accompanied by “Beauty”  grandpa’s big friendly and protective  “Spitzbergen ” dog.  On the way out, I sometimes got a ride in the well-crafted wood wagon grandpa  had built for this purpose.  On the way home we all walked. 

At the market the wagon was loaded for the walk home.  Thinking back, I don’t recall ever seeing any toilet tissue being packed into the wagon.  To grandpa’s thinking  that particular  product was not that valuable of a commodity to take up the scarce space  in the small wagon.  As a consequence soft tissue paper, so in demand at the present, was completely absent in the old country house on Smithtown Lane —and in the “outhouse” I knew as a young boy.  

This was a post WWII world—a time of “making do” with scarcity and using and adapting one item to other sometimes incongruent purposes.  Grandpa grew his own vegetables, collected his own eggs, made his own wine and brandy and roasted his own chicory-adulterated coffee. He saved everything, string, rope, old screws and nails, and he even had a big ball of salvaged “silver foil” (our aluminum foil).  So it was no surprise that the hefty last year’s Sears & Roebuck cataloged was adapted to a new purpose.  It was that thin scratchy paper of the catalogue which was repurposed into the sanitary commodity we are finding in scarce supply these days.  On my first visit to the outhouse I was introduced to the old S&R catalogue nailed  to the side wall by a long ten penny nail driven through its corner spine.   

I immediately understood the obvious “shortcomings” of this substitute over the real thing, but accepting that—I soon adapted and could —like grandpa—list  a few advantages over the typical white roll.  It was cheap.  In fact, it was free.  Sears and Roebuck Company mailed it gratis to all its customers.  It was more compact for packing—with almost as many “sheets” as the rolled item and fit more easily in the supply wagon than the bulky rolls.  The 8in x10in  thin, crinkly sheets were of ample size.  But even better,  they served two functions, that is: as a relaxing, comforting and informative reading material, as well as for the other purpose. 

I recall perusing these yellow-tinted sheets with great interest while—seated and otherwise occupied.   Furthermore, if the exposed sheet—that next sheet to be put to use—, had adverts which were  not to your particular interest,  one could simply flip through the catalog for something that was of more interest and of your choice.  

As a ten year old, I was not much enthused about bedding and furniture, but I could be attracted to Sears & Roebuck’s  offerings  in the sections on farm tools, shot-guns, fishing equipment, hardware, and especially kid’s toys.   Furthermore, you could, without any sense of guilt at all, just jettison any uninteresting pages—say on ladies undergarments, or bedding and bed sheets and go on to another page that might be of more interest.  Tipping over and tossing pages down the hole was no problem. One always felt confident that in  the “outhouse system” of waste disposal there was no worry concerning  clots of paper causing clogs, or cesspools overflowing, or plugged waste lines in need extensive professional and costly attention.. In the outhouse simple gravity did its work for you  in an efficient nearly noiseless manner.  Then  silent  biological decay took care of the rest.  Furthermore, there was no concern about “aerosolization” (as there is today in the corona virus outbreak) contaminating the air with disease germs caused by noisy flushing and bubbling in a modern toilet. 

And time was not wasted— a prime concern for a ten year old boy with a busy summer schedule of exploration and discovery in the country,  For even “outhouse time” became interesting and informative with all this free and well- illustrated reading material available,  There were many new words to learn and  much to  marvel at in the catalogue concerning what adults used, how much these items cost and what Sears & Roebuck’s owners  thought  people wanted to buy. 

Looking back, it seems that spending time in social isolation in a time of a disease epidemic was not much of an inconvenience  for a ten year old boy in old Smithtown, NY, even if one had to suffer with no toilet tissue available.