Sandee wrote: > ... my understanding is that a virus is NOT a pathogen, my > understanding is that a pathogen is a single cell organism with no > protection of any kind and does not hide anywhere for protection...
Hi Sandee, Pathogen is a general term for any disease causing organism... >From Wikipedia (an adequate source in this case...): > A pathogen ... in the oldest and broadest sense is anything that can > produce disease. Typically the term is used to mean an infectious > agent (colloquially known as a germ) — a microorganism, in the widest > sense such as a virus, bacterium, prion, fungus or protozoan, that > causes disease in its host. > So, it's the kind of word that distinguishes what ails you from toxins, injury, nutrient deficiency, or autoimmune stuff, for a few examples. If it's pathogenic in origin, it means you got infected somehow. So, you'll need to understand the biology of each of the general types of pathogens and treat them as separate things in your mind. If you look up the above listed types of pathogen you'll get a description of what each one is and does... Just off the top of my head... Virus: A strand of DNA, possibly with an additional sheath of protein, but no cell wall or protoplasm (gooey stuff inside a cell). It's pretty much a simple piece of protein that happens to be able to sneak into a host cell and trick it into using the cell's own reproductive apparatus to reproduce the *virus*. It is not a cell, in and of itself. It's much smaller than a cell and needs a living cell to serve as a host. Bacterium: single celled organism with (usually) a cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus containing DNA, and other internal structures along with protoplasm (aforesaid gooey stuff). There are a handful of general types, determined mostly by their shape under the microscope: cocci (round) bacilli (bar or rod shaped), spirochete (spiral shaped). They're generally on the same order of size as many types of cells or often somewhat smaller. They can themselves be infected by viruses! And so on for prions, fungi or protozoa... In this case, wikipedia can be your friend. They'll at least get these basic definitions right. > ... why CS without any carrier can kill by itself We know that it can and does, provided it can get to the germs causing the problem. A carrier like DMSO might help silver get past membranes into cells, or the spaces between cells, or into mucus... anyplace that pathogens might set up housekeeping and silver might normally be slower or prevented entirely from penetrating. Other treatments you might try alongside silver may do different things and their effectiveness might combine favorably... but it might not be correct to call them "carriers" if that's not what they're actually doing. There might be synergy where the effect is greater than the sum of the parts, or their effects might just add together simply and leave you no way of knowing how much is because of which thing you're doing... Not altogether a bad thing so long as you're getting better, but not as informative as careful testing would be. Anyway, I hope there is a little clarity for you in all of that. You just have to get ahold of the pieces of the subject and make them fit together for you. Nothing takes the place of understanding, and that usually depends on some brute force studying to cram the bits and pieces into your brain. <smile> Be well, Mike D. -- The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. Rules and Instructions: http://www.silverlist.org Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html Off-Topic discussions: <mailto:[email protected]> List Owner: Mike Devour <mailto:[email protected]>
