Introduction to Bacteria and Viruses.
Bacteria) if we are speaking of a particular species, we refer to a bacterium. For example there is a specific species of bacterium that causes stomach problems and ulcers, these are known as helicobacter pylori. The standard treatment now for ulcers is antibiotics, and people are being cured. The connection between bacterium and virus, is not that they are the same type of agents, but both of these are agents of infectious disease, they cause disease. .
Bacterium, some fall under the heading of germs, and viruses almost always fall under germs. Now we must make two categories of types of diseases, there are those that are infectious and those, which are non infectious. Infectious diseases are those, which are transmissible, communicable, they are spread from an infected individual to an uninfected individual. The agent that causes the disease is transmissible from an infected individual that harbors the germ, and passes it in some sort of means. For example, the flu, we have all had it many times. We have virus induced diseases, bacteria induced, fungus caused, worm type diseases, and protozoans, these are the top five agents of communicable diseases, which are all communicable from an infected individual to another individual who is susceptible but not infected. Those that are non infectious, are non-communicable, meaning that they are not spread from person to person. Cancer for example, is non infectious. Likewise, if we get mercury in our body from a contaminated water source, or lead, arsenic, and cathium, which are heavy metals that are all poisonous. They stick in the body, bind irreversibly to proteins and we cannot get rid of them. They begin to accumulate and we develop symptoms from this very slowly. Heavy metal poison, or PCB, organic poisoning, which is poly chlorinated biphenyls are quite toxic but are not transmissible. There are also those 3000+ inherited disorders, which are not transmitted from one person to another, such as Tay Sach's disease.
