Tea at Trianon: 'Brain-eating' Amoeba Case in Florida

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, March 2, 2023

'Brain-eating' Amoeba Case in Florida

From Live Science:

A person in Charlotte County, Florida, was recently sickened by a single-celled organism that can cause a rare, "brain-eating infection," possibly as a result of rinsing their sinuses with unfiltered tap water, health officials reported(opens in new tab). No information was provided on the person's condition, but the infection is typically fatal.

The organism, an amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, typically lives in soil and warm fresh water and can sometimes grow in water tanks, heaters and pipes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(opens in new tab) (CDC). In rare instances, it can infiltrate the human body and cause a disease of the brain and spinal cord called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), the CDC(opens in new tab) says. People can't develop PAM by swallowing N. fowleri or by interacting with an already-infected person; rather, the amoeba enters the brain through the nose, by traveling through the nerve that relays information about smells from the nose to the brain. Symptoms of the infection emerge between one and 12 days after N. fowleri enters the nose, and the infection is almost always fatal — people typically die one to 18 days after symptoms begin. (Read more.)