tetano
Editor, Senior Moderator
Like most rhymes that one learns as a child, I had no idea at the time what this one meant, nor did I ponder its possible meaning as I grew older. But one afternoon, this poem's significance became startlingly clear to me. As I sat in a large university lecture hall where I was working towards my microbiology degree, these words abruptly popped into my mind during lecture. I was surprised by this unexpected and noisy mental guest; my life had changed in almost every conceivable way since early childhood and I hadn't thought about that rhyme in many years.
Having earned part of my tuition by working in a hospital microbiology lab, I found microbiology fascinating, but this particular lecture riveted me like no other because it shook my worldview. This was the lecture about influenza, including a discussion of the pandemic of 1918-1919. This worldwide disease outbreak had unparalleled deadliness, claiming more lives than did any of the plague pandemics, yet I had never even heard about it.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/science/...andemic-1918-viruses-biology-medicine-history
Having earned part of my tuition by working in a hospital microbiology lab, I found microbiology fascinating, but this particular lecture riveted me like no other because it shook my worldview. This was the lecture about influenza, including a discussion of the pandemic of 1918-1919. This worldwide disease outbreak had unparalleled deadliness, claiming more lives than did any of the plague pandemics, yet I had never even heard about it.
...
http://www.theguardian.com/science/...andemic-1918-viruses-biology-medicine-history