King Minos and the Virus: A Short Story

Viruses, Plagues, and History, written by Michael Oldstone, is an insightful and highly educational book that details the history of, that’s right, viruses and plagues. Through typically dry, yet engaging prose, Oldstone recounts what seems like all of it while simultaneously bringing to light the contributions of those brave scientists who asked themselves, “why.” He focuses his attention on some of the most notable viruses such as smallpox, yellow fever, measles, polio, and later he focuses on more contemporary battles against disease.

The Hot Zone, written by Richard Preston is the true and dramatic story of the outbreaks of the frightening, unknown and incurable filoviruses; Marburg, Ebola Zaire, Ebola Sudan and Ebola Reston. This book covers the first documented outbreak of the virus and continues to cover more outbreaks over the course of 23 years. These sisters viruses are highly infective and destroyed entire communities throughout Africa with the deaths of 50- 90% of their victims. The effects are similar and horrifying with the viruses penetrating every tissue and organ in the body of a person, primate or other animal. This book takes place in the late 1980s and is based on an outbreak of Ebola in a monkey house in the quaint town of Reston, Virginia. Richard Preston incorporates tales of several outbreaks that occurred in Africa years before to describe the potential destruction that the filoviruses could

The Minotaur, meaning Minos bull, was “a monster of dire appearance, having the body of a powerful man and the head of a bull” (Seltman 98). Against his newfound father’s request, Theseus leaves Athens in hopes of returning victorious against the bull-headed beast. In a heroic fashion, Theseus leaps over the next step in Campbell’s hero journey and never refuses his call to adventure. The next step to any hero’s journey is an encounter with a super natural aid, but Theseus’ story takes a moral mentor to gather resources needed for the rest of his journey (Robertson 269). Theseus encounters his unlikely mentor upon arriving to Crete; Minos daughter, Ariadne, instructs Theseus to take a ball of linen with him into the labyrinth in order to trace back his steps after defeating the Minotaur (Martin 129). Crossing the threshold, Theseus ties one end of his ball of linen to the front door and journeys into the unconquerable maze and towards the beast (129). Theseus passes through his first trial of navigating the labyrinth inwards with ease straight into danger. Walking

The Minotaur, half man half bull, lived in Crete. Trapped in a labyrinth, constructed by the great Daedalus, the king of Crete, King Minos, demanded a tribute of seven boys and seven girls from Athens to satisfy the Minotaur’s savage hunger. But one year, Minos was deceived, for a new hero arose, Theseus, son of Aegeus, Prince of Athens. He won over the heart of Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, and used her ball of string to venture into the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur. After a hard-fought grapple within the lair of the minotaur, the beast fell to the sword of Aegeus, which Theseus had smuggled into the maze. Using the string, he found his way back out. The Labyrinth went underground, void of life, never to be seen again.

Sir Arthur Evans discovered the Palace of Knossos (Fig. 1) when looking for the legendary labyrinth of King Minos on the Island of Crete. According to the myth, King Minos had a complex labyrinth built to house the Minotaur, a monstrous creature his wife gave birth to. The palace’s construction was a maze of rooms with no logical set up and led Evans to think the palace itself was most likely the labyrinth. The myth states, every year seven girls and seven boys of a young age were chosen as tribute to enter the labyrinth.1 The myth of the labyrinth in connection with the Palace of Knossos can be linked to a right of passage or a coming of age ritual in Ancient Greece. The tributes entered, wrestled with their thoughts and finally emerged as adults ready to take their places in society.

I recently read an article written in The NEWYORKER called The Deadliest Virus by Michael Specter. The article talked about the Avian Flu virus, also known as “bird flu”. In the article, Specter interviewed many people, but the most important person, in my opinion, is a virologist who conducted research on the Avian Flu, Ron Fouchier. This article raised many ethical questions. The questions are as followed: Should research be conducted on this virus? Does Fouchier’s research pose a threat? Does the risk of the work outweigh the benefits of the research?

The plague, otherwise known as “the Black Death”, brought on much turmoil and suffering for the habitants of Pistoia. Numerous ordinances were put into effect with the primary goal of limiting the spread of the plague as well as to keep the city as healthy as possible. These ordinances typically focused on confinement, i.e. no one goes to Pisa and Luca and no one from Pisa and Luca is allowed to enter Pistoia (ordinance 1), how death and burials are to be processed (ordinances 3-12), and how butchers were to handle their animals and animal carcasses (ordinances 13-19). Essentially, confinement was targeted in hopes of stopping the spread of the infection while keeping the city isolated. Secondly, how the bodies of plague victims and their

The Black Death arrived in Europe in October 1348. It was also known as The Blue Sickness or the Great Mortality (Extra, 2011). Today it is known as The Plague, The Black Death or The Black Plague.

25-50 million people. That is the amount of casualties caused by the Black Death, it was brought to Europe in the 1340’s by ships returning from the eastern side of the world. However, most of the men on the ships were already dead or nearly dead, sick with the terrible virus. Although the Black Death is very lethal and difficult to survive, they have now found ways to prevent the virus from infecting anyone else.

The air between them had cooled considerably, a fact that she was thankful for. It would not do for a fight to break out here, not with her in this condition. Barely anything good could ever come of violence, and the few things that seemed to always had a vicious backswing attached to them. Everyone payed when two wolves fought-- be it their families, friends, or the wolves themselves-- even thought they knew not the price.

The organisms who benefit from the removal of infected monarchs would be the healthier individuals and their offspring according to the hypothesis. The healthier individuals benefit from the loss of infected individuals because the healthier individuals are less likely to come into contact with those infected individuals. This enables the healthy individuals to remain healthy and increases their chances of survival and the chance to reproduce improving their fitness. Additionally, these healthy individuals will not mate with the infected individuals. This is helpful for the species because the genes of infected individuals will not be passed on to the offspring. The genes of healthy individuals will be passed on which may allow for more

Now Theseus is older and is in his father’s palace in Athens, the fame seeking youth decided to set his sights on a new journey. A journey which would lead to him being loved and remembered by all the people of Athens. During this time Athens had a severe problem, the neighboring island Crete would attack them every so often. The king of Athens decided to try and compromise with Crete. He stated if Crete left Athens alone for nine years they would send fourteen Athenian youths seven male and seven females as a sacrifice to Minos to be fed to the Minotaur king Minos pet. The king of Athens goal was to build a strong navy, so they could defend themselves from Crete. Surprisingly the king of Crete Mino kept his word and never attacked Athens. Now nine years had come, and it was Athens turn to keep their word. The king of Athens was conflicted as he knew the value of keeping one's word. Theseus seeing this as the perfect opportunity to earn new fame and liken his image in Athens volunteered as the seventh male Athenian youth. Theseus’s goal is to slay the Minotaur and save his fellow Athenians. Theseus promises his father, he will return alive and when he does, he will change the color of the sail on the ship from white to black. In the event the sails stay black his father should assume Theseus has met his demise. After the Athenians arrive in Crete they are welcomed by King Mino’s and princess Ariadne, upon seeing

Late Medieval Christianity in Europe was known for conflict and death. Terrible weather conditions made food production drop which led to starvation. A deadly plague, known as the Black Death, emerged. The economy was falling apart. Churches went from a place of safety to a place of wrongdoing, which ultimately led to the Hundred Years’ War. Despite this devastation, there was one influential mystic woman, Catherine of Siena, who was trying to bring everyone back to peace. Catherine devoted herself to religion at a young age. She wanted to work in the public and help everyone who was being affected by the plague, even with the risk of becoming infected herself. Since the Black Death started many significant issues that occurred in Europe during

The Plague, by Albert Camus, is a story following a man named Dr. Rieux living in the town of Oran on the coast of Algeria, which was a French owned territory in Africa. In this town, a plague begins, similar to that of the Bubonic plague in Europe, and the town is quarantined. The story shows how the residents cope and try to create a cure while surrounded by dying people and a lack of supplies and entertainment. In this novel, he uses the format of a Shakespearean play, with five acts and from the point of view of an audience looking in, rather than from a first-person view. He also points to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus goes against all odds to the underworld to rescue his love, Eurydice, who was taken from him by

I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, foremost of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place- then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement- and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice”