In a recent bout of nostalgia, I decided to revisit Aesop's fable of the city mouse and country mouse. When the city mouse goes to visit the country mouse, he convinces the country mouse to come back to the city with him because life there is so much better. But once the country mouse gets to the city, he almost gets eaten by a cat and is so scared that he runs back to the country life: "Thank you, but I'll take my humble crumbs in comfort over all of your finery with fear!"
The way the country is presented in this fable serves as a basis for the symbolism that we attach to our environment. As demonstrated in many literary works, the city represents evil and crime while the country represents health and vitality. Upton Sinclair used this symbolism in The Jungle to reinforce the disgusting, deadly conditions that the main character, Jurgis, tolerated before he was able to escape and recuperate in the sunny countryside.
Growing up, this symbolism and imagery was reinforced by many of the children's books and experiences to which I was exposed. Farm animals were the topic of almost every book I read and petting zoos quickly became one of my favorite places to go. The innocent, good nature of animals is promoted through the association with children, while farms evoke the connotation of wholesome values and healthy growth.
This positive association we have with the country makes it extremely disturbing to learn about the newest health threat: swine flu. It's disconcerting to think the very same animal I loved as a childhood symbol, like Babe or Wilbur from Charlotte's Web, is a carrier for several pandemic-inducing viruses.
Not only do pigs share swine flu among themselves, they can also be carriers for avian flu; both of which they can transmit to humans through direct interaction. While you can't contract swine flu through eating pork or pork products, the forms swine flu has currently taken are alarming. Swine flu has been attributed to the deaths of several people in Mexico and has been confirmed as the cause for the flu outbreak at a school in Queens.
The unnerving part about swine flu is that it has severely affected otherwise healthy people who aren't older than 60 or younger than 3 years old, which the typical flu strains usually target. The virus has crossed the species barrier. Based on the outbreak at the school in Queens, it appears to have achieved successful transmission between humans. According to a list of frequently asked questions about swine flu published by the World Health Organization on Sunday, "If a swine virus establishes efficient human-to-human transmission, it can cause an influenza pandemic. The impact of a pandemic caused by such a virus is difficult to predict: it depends on virulence of the virus, existing immunity among people, cross protection by antibodies acquired from seasonal influenza infection and host factors."
Symptoms of swine flu are similar to those of the seasonal flu and other upper respiratory tract infections, but they could range anywhere from asymptomatic to severe or fatal pneumonia, according to the World Health Organization.
Spinach, tomatoes and peanut butter: all common foods, which we were shocked to find put people at risk for Salmonella poisoning. Fear of the West Nile Virus lurks with every mosquito. Now, we can add pigs to the list of offenders; and one could even go so far as to add humans. The positive symbolism once associated with the farm has been destroyed by the realization that the majority of our health threats come from animals and the food we eat. Whether this should be attributed to our farming practices or not is another matter, but the interaction between our lives and the environment that we have created for ourselves is much more complex than we could even imagine.
Amy Biolchinibiolchal@muohio.edu
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