I contain multitudes

My current reading is "I contain multitudes" by Ed Yong, that is about bacteria within our body. Unlike most non-fiction books that I read, this one makes me feel old.

I studied microbiology in the years 1974-8, where the focus was on pathogens that might appear in food. We learned how to distinguish when faecal contamination occurred, according to the bacteria found in food. I don't recall them off-hand, but one indicated contamination within the past day, one within the past week, and one (almost certainly clostridium perfringens) within the past month.

But this book is about the good things that our internal bacteria can do for us, a view that was unheard of 50 years ago. It's statements like 'By the 1990s, scientists knew that there were more than 100 HMOs in milk, but had only characterised a few' that make me feel old. The way it's written, the 1990s were long ago, but for my studies, they were 20 years in the future.

I wouldn't say that everything that I learnt has been overturned, but it also seems so antiquated now.

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This day in history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
119	16/03/2008	Back to blogging	Office automation, Meta-blogging
120	16/03/2008	Chava Alberstein	Chava Alberstein
464	16/03/2012	Rubber duck debugging	Programming
1480	16/03/2022	My first year as a Londoner, part 1 - being a student	Personal, 1975, 1974