6 July

Yep, it's always the boobs. As recently as WW2 women were blamed for sexually transmitted infections. Syphilis is back, one of the most horrendous of all diseases. Often called the 'no nose' disease, because sufferers lose their nose. Look at this 19th century prosthetic nose, used by a woman. And the damage syphilis does even to the bones, in this case the skull. This interests me because microbes understand time. Antibiotics made us think syphilis was in the 'past'. It isn't, it's back, as are many diseases we thought antibiotics had destroyed. Time doesn't pass, microbes are actually immortal. And we - humans - are societies of microbes, so share that immortality.