Bøger af Karl Drlica

Bitten by the Rowing Bug is about rowing fragile wooden racing shells on an untamed Oregon river in a rowing program that taught self-reliance to college students during the mid-twentieth century. It is also about a legally blind jack-of-all-trades who drove that program forward for more than thirty years.Initially, rowing was offered only to male students, because society frowned on women sweating and fiercely competing. Rowing eroded that attitude and brought equality to team sports. The characters and events that shaped this era of American history reflect a time when self-sufficiency was highly valued: a rowing program challenged by the river taught practical skills, and competing as a team inspired students to achieve collectively. After several decades of effort, varsity status was achieved for both men and women, despite attempts by some University administrators to terminate the largely volunteer program and repurpose the dozen or so buildings at the river.Gleaned from interviews, personal experience, and a rich archive, Bitten by the Rowing Bug gives the reader a sense of the thrill and challenge of using human power to skim over the water surface-all with the added demand of doing it faster than someone else.

In the closing decade of the last century, we saw warnings that infectious diseases will require much more attention from patients and physicians in the 21 st century. Recently d- covered diseases such as AIDS pose a major threat to the population at large, and to that threat has been added the re-emergence of established pathogens, microbes that were re- ily treatable in the past. Since infectious diseases already play a major role in the burden of illness and mortality, health care providers and planners are worried. A large proportion of the problem is man-made, arising mainly from the unnecessary overuse of antimicrobials in hospital and community settings and from the agricultural misuse of the agents in animal feed. A consequence has been a dramatic increase in resi- ant strains of bacteria that were considered conquerable several decades ago. Community infections caused by multi-resistant pneumococci serve as an example. These organisms were readily treated with penicillin, but now the spread of penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae from continent to continent is becoming a worldwide problem. This is a major concern because pneumococcal infections are common in the community, being the le- ing cause of pneumonia, sinusitis, and meningitis. Resistant bacteria in hospitals are also becoming more prevalent. We have become accustomed to hearing about methicill- resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), but now we have to be concerned about multidrug-resistant coliform bacteria and pseudomonads.