why are diseases always negative? Are there diseases that have positive effects on human beings?
In: Biology
By way of an example of a ‘beneficial’ disease…
Cowpox conveyed immunity to smallpox. Being nearly the same virus, but for cows, it didn’t make a mess of humans, but the immune system would recognize either, from then on. Cowpox is what we eventually eliminated smallpox with.
Previous to that, someone would infect your skin with pustules/scabs from someone with smallpox, and about 3% of people died from that, but 97% *didn’t*. So it was better than randomly getting smallpox, which killed 30% of people who caught it.
And previous to *that*, smallpox would come around, everyone would catch it, and 30% would die, and many of the survivors would be horribly scarred.
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