Professors: Viruses

Our virology professor was this sweet, tall, Polish woman. I probably liked her lectures 10x more just because of her accent.

My classmates didn't really like virology, because it was basically learning a long list of viruses. We went through a bunch of families, learning a bunch of details about one virus after another. It was also in this horrible room where the desk is slanted and there's not much space between it and the seats. This means that  not only do all your pens and papers slide off the desk, you can't really bend down to get it. If you try, the only option is basically planting your face in your neighbour's lap.

The best part about virology was that she regularly showed us videos in class. I say it's the best part, because it was interesting and a good way to learn, but it was also terrifying. Early on, when we were doing the more routine viruses, they were more simple videos about diagnosis and transmission etc. Then, as we got to the horrible, deadly, zoonotic viruses, we got to see documentaries about how scary and bad such viruses are. For instance there was an emerging virus in Australia that killed some horses... and then the vet who did the post mortem. And the horse's trainer. This was a brand new virus that no one knew about, and now they've done a lot of science and figured out it's in the same family as other wonderful diseases such as canine distemper and rinderpest. Then there was that virus's friend, in pigs in Malasia, that everyone thought was something else transmitted by mosquitoes. So they gave all the pig workers lots of mosquito protection, but a bunch of people died anyway, and they had to quarantine the pig farms and destroy the pigs. Both of those viruses are actually transmitted by fruit bats, particularly their faeces.

Then, of course, there are the fun videos about rabies, documenting not only rabid animals, but rabid people, including interviewing the one girl who is the only person ever to survive it. It kills a significant number of people every year, largely in Africa I believe. That girl had been bitten by a bat (I think she lived in the US), and didn't think to take any precautions. When she came down with the symptoms later, they went through great heroics, and eventually saved her by inducing a coma and keeping the virus from replicating in her nervous system.

Somehow, these things didn't seem to phase our professor. She was as excited about viruses as I think people can get. When she showed us a frightening video about ebola, she was saying how that sort of crazy, big-deal virus that everyone hears about was what got her interested in the discipline initially. You know, the ones that kill practically everybody that catches them. I agree that they are fascinating but I don't think I would be able to sleep at night if I studied them.

I think the thing I learned most from that class was never, ever touch a bat. And it is probably also a good idea to never, ever visit Africa either.