Emerging viruses

[alison at molbiol.uct.ac.za]

"Infectious disease is one of the few genuine adventures left in the world. 
The dragons are all dead and the lance grows rusty in the chimney corner...
About the only sporting proposition that remains unimpaired by the 
relentless domestication of a once free-living human species is the war 
against those ferocious little fellow creatures, which lurk in dark corners 
and stalk us in the bodies of rats, mice and all kinds of domestic animals; 
which fly and crawl with the insects, and waylay us in our food and drink 
and even in our love."

-Hans Zinsser, `Rats, Lice and History (1934)'