"Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge" on PBS

I've been watching an amazing series about infectious diseases, global health and medicine on Boston's PBS: RX for Survival. It is pleasantly narrated by Brad Pitt. There are six episodes. I've seen three so far. Every one has been fascinating.

The episodes include a lot of cool stuff like computer animations of cells and virii, re-enactments of historical events, all sort of documentary footage and commentary from experts and workers in the fields of infectious disease and medicince. Some things I recall from the shows I've seen:

• Penicillin was discovered by a WWI doctor named Fleming who'd seen the effects of infection in war. Infection killed men more surely than their wounds. He was trying to discover a way to kill bacteria after the war, which he'd been culturing. He left a stack of cultures in a tray to clean later and forgot about them. Eventually he noticed some household mold growing on a culture dish and that the bacteria in the dish was being eliminated by something in the mold. Thus was penicillin discovered.
• There are fierce "superbug" strains of bacteria in soil that can be caught by football players because they spend so much time playing in the dirt. One terrible story of a 21 year old college football star was told. He was in top physical condition but died shortly after contracting a bacterial infection that doctors weren't able to diagnose in time.
• Smallpox was eradicated largely due to the efforts of a team of long-haired, unconventional "disease warriors" who relentlessly organized and carried out vaccinations in third world countries.
• Malaria is caused by a parasite that invades red blood cells and multiplies, destroying the red blood cells in the process. It used to be quite common in the US until it was eradicated, largely through DDT spraying and wetlands drainage. Most cheap, over-the-counter malaria drugs are no longer effective in Africa, and many of the drugs sold (to impoverished people!) are counterfeit.
• DDT might be a good thing to bring back in Africa to fight malaria. DDT was highly effective in eliminating mosquito-borne malaria in the US, but was banned for its environmental effects before Africa got a chance to be treated with it.
• Sub-saharan Africa is a harsh world full of horrible diseases that kill and maim millions of poor people. Some of the worst diseases there could be fairly easily eradicated if richer countries would spend some money to do it.
• The first vaccine was for Smallpox. It was discovered by a man who observed that milk maids who caught Cowpox from cows never caught Smallpox. He hypothesized that the Cowpox conferred immunity to Smallpox. He tested his hypothesis by scraping the pus from a milk maid's Cowpox blister into a small incision in a local boy's arm and then locking the boy in a room with contagious Smallpox victim!

The shows do well as part entertainment, part education.

The series is definitely worth watching. Catch it if you can. It'll remind you how lucky we are in a first world country and in this point in history. And donate if you can. This site is connected with the show and allows donations online: https://donate.care.org/05/20810000cl/