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Fungal Disease in Britain and the United States 1850–2000Aspergillosis: A Disease of Modern Technology

Fungal Disease in Britain and the United States 1850–2000: Aspergillosis: A Disease of Modern... [Aspergillosis is the least well known of the diseases we discuss in this book, in part because there is no common presentation as with ringworm and thrush, and in part because it only emerged as a serious condition late in the twentieth century. We discussed Aspergillus spores as allergens in the last chapter and in this chapter we consider its other forms.1 The first modern English language book on aspergillosis was a collection of essays published in 1985, some 20 years after that for candidiasis and 150 years after ringworm.2 The first international meeting on aspergillosis was in 1971 and was linked to concern about farmer’s lung.3 Serious medical interest in aspergillosis only took off in the 1980s, with the emergence of invasive aspergillosis as an opportunistic, life-threatening infection of immuno-compromised patients. This condition had attracted some medical attention from the 1960s as a complication of leukaemia and its profile grew with the development of high tech surgical and medical interventions, such as transplant surgery, intensive care and immunosuppressant treatment regimes.4 However, the public profile of Aspergilli fungi was much higher, not as infectious disease agents, but as producers of toxic chemicals that developed on rotting foodstuffs and introduced to the world a new class of poisons: myco-toxins. Aspergilli fungi produce compounds called aflatoxins and the detection of these prompted a debate about whether they were newly recognised, or newly produced. This ended with a consensus that they were genuinely novel and came from the unforeseen consequences of new technologies of transporting, storing and processing foodstuffs.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Fungal Disease in Britain and the United States 1850–2000Aspergillosis: A Disease of Modern Technology

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and the Author(s) 2013
ISBN
978-1-137-39263-3
Pages
118 –136
DOI
10.1057/9781137377029_6
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Aspergillosis is the least well known of the diseases we discuss in this book, in part because there is no common presentation as with ringworm and thrush, and in part because it only emerged as a serious condition late in the twentieth century. We discussed Aspergillus spores as allergens in the last chapter and in this chapter we consider its other forms.1 The first modern English language book on aspergillosis was a collection of essays published in 1985, some 20 years after that for candidiasis and 150 years after ringworm.2 The first international meeting on aspergillosis was in 1971 and was linked to concern about farmer’s lung.3 Serious medical interest in aspergillosis only took off in the 1980s, with the emergence of invasive aspergillosis as an opportunistic, life-threatening infection of immuno-compromised patients. This condition had attracted some medical attention from the 1960s as a complication of leukaemia and its profile grew with the development of high tech surgical and medical interventions, such as transplant surgery, intensive care and immunosuppressant treatment regimes.4 However, the public profile of Aspergilli fungi was much higher, not as infectious disease agents, but as producers of toxic chemicals that developed on rotting foodstuffs and introduced to the world a new class of poisons: myco-toxins. Aspergilli fungi produce compounds called aflatoxins and the detection of these prompted a debate about whether they were newly recognised, or newly produced. This ended with a consensus that they were genuinely novel and came from the unforeseen consequences of new technologies of transporting, storing and processing foodstuffs.]

Published: Dec 15, 2015

Keywords: Invasive Aspergillosis; Pulmonary Tuberculosis; Fungal Disease; Invasive Candidiasis; Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis

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