SubscribeBy the 1950s and 1960s, the proliferation of public libraries had largely killed off private lending libraries, and the declining risk of infectious diseases and consequent public interest meant that the concept of books as transmitters of disease was no longer worthy of serious consideration.There is nothing about books that makes them more condusive to airborne pathogens than any other public surface that people might sneeze on, touch, breathe on, or sit on. They're not warm, they're not moist, they're not generally in contact with food or anything that is particularly noxious human-bodywise, any more than anything else your wife would come in contact with in the public world. She's more at risk flying on an airplane or eating in a restaurant or going to the doctor than she is borrowing a library book. On the other hand older library books can sometimes fall prey to spores and molds which, while less likely to be spreading infection, can trigger allergies in people.
Government health researchers plan to conduct tests next year on the contents of a yellowed envelope apparently filled with scabs from 19th-century smallpox vaccinations.
The scabs, found in a New Mexico university library, could shed light on the development of American smallpox vaccines, an official at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
There's also a slim chance, researchers say, that the scabs could yield live smallpox virus, which is believed to reside in only two laboratories in the world. Smallpox in the general public was eradicated a generation ago, but it is often mentioned as a potentially devastating biological weapon.
posted by ChasFile at 6:30 AM on May 18, 2006