Listeria + Hysteria = Lysteria!

It has been almost a year since I've posted. Just like a doctor: always running behind.

In that time, my friend Brendon has finished his Play-A-Day project, and has started up Lysteria. Since he is one of the few (the proud!) who might actually read this post, I've decided to compose an ode to that most forgotten of undercooked-food diseases, listeria.

The disease was named in honour (English, you know) of Joseph Lister, the man who made it less likely for you to die of sepsis after surgery by promoting the then novel idea of sterilizing the surgical arena and instruments. His name also helped popularize a fledgeling oral antiseptic called Listerine, which all but invented "halitosis" as a medical concept.

If I ever do something that radically changes the practice of medicine, and in 100 years, my name is associated most widely with bad breath, I swear I will haunt the bejeebers out of somebody.

Primary symptoms of listeriosis are the same as for influenza or dengue fever: muscle aches and, of course, fever. Occasionally gastrointestinal symptoms can occur, but take note! "Stomach flu" is gatroenteritis, not influenza (or dengue fever, for that matter). I don't care how many times my mother called that illness I got after eating unrefrigerated leftovers as a kid "stomach flu".

Listeria can be deadly. A recent outbreak caused by contaminated milk in Massachusetts left 2 men dead. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: watch your dairy products, people.

A completely different, but infinitely more puzzling condition is the similarly-named "Liszteria," a passion for the famed pianist and composer, Franz Liszt.

Well, that's my yearly post. See you in 2009!