Dear Elise, What you say makes sense. I have often wondered, and I was voting for cataracts, but then I realized that happens quite late in life. I am truly impressed by the expertise that various members of Arachne bring to the discussion. In our own way, we are a powerhouse of passion for lace, intellectual questers, and a variety of expertise. Yay us!
"My email sends out an automatic message. Arachne members, please ignore it. I read your emails." >I agree Devon, the theory of blindness from making lace has never made sense >to me. However, I disagree that syphilis was the usual culprit ... >My pet theory is Clamydia trachomatis. This is still the leading infectious >cause of blindness today in 3rd world countries. Itâs epidemiology makes it >a likely candidate in my opinion. Even today, it affects significantly more >women than men. Blindness, when it progresses to that point, usually occurs >during adulthood, striking women today in their late 20s to early 40s. By this >age, most lacemakers would have been making lace for a good many years, thus, >it may have appeared that it was the lacemaking that caused the blindness. >Then as now, it was endemic in poor areas with poor sanitation. Itâs natural >reservoir is young children, and the adults affected are virtually always the >caretakers of young childrenâ hence, the overwhelming majority of those >affected are women. It is far more prevalent in households with multiple >children, lack of water, poor personnel hygiene, open fires for cooking, and >group sleeping. The part I found the most compelling as far as the lacemaking >legend, is that the early infections in children present as a typical >conjunctivitisâ highly contagious, lots of eye discharge, and a pretty >noticeable infection. In adults, however, the scarring that leads to cornea >opacities and blindness occurs after repeated infections earlier in life. By >adulthood, they no longer get the typical conjunctivitis with the active >discharge due to changes in their immune response. Their infections at that >point are latent and often no longer result in what we would consider to be a >ânormalâ looking conjunctivitis. So to observers with no knowledge of the >disease progression or even germ theory, it would appear that adult women who >took care of children, lived in poor conditions and had poor sanitation and >hygiene, and made fine lace, tended to go blind after a couple of decades of >fine lacework. By recognizing that lace took sharp eyesight, they made the >assumption that the lacemaking caused the blindness. When in actuality, lace >and good eyesight were just confounding factors and the true culprit wasnât >recognized because the really noticeable infections had taken place years >before. >Blindness due to C. trachomatis faded away in Europe long before antibiotics >were available to treat it because sanitation became better, access to clean >water was more readily available, and most importantly, knowledge of using >cleanliness to avoid disease became more widespread. > >I love it when my worlds collide! > >Eliseâ microbiologist in Maine > > - To unsubscribe send email to majord...@arachne.com containing the line: unsubscribe lace y...@address.here. For help, write to arachne.modera...@gmail.com. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
