Here at Top Comments we strive to nourish community by rounding up some of the site's best, funniest, most mojo'd & most informative commentary, and we depend on your help!! If you see a comment by another Kossack that deserves wider recognition, please send it either to topcomments at gmail or to the Top Comments group mailbox by 9:30pm Eastern. Please please please include a few words about why you sent it in as well as your user name (even if you think we know it already :-)), so we can credit you with the find!
A Twitter thread posted by @WhoresofYore on the topic of Angel’s Glow caught my attention. Further details are provided by this article on allthatisinteresting.com.
The Battle of Shiloh, which took place on April 6, 1862, during the U. S. Civil War, was brutal, killing and wounding as many as 23,000 men. In that sense, it was similar to many other battles of the Civil War. The battlefield was cold and rainy during the battle and after. Hypothermia was a problem. Wounded men languished in mud and filth, and many of them died of their wounds. However, both medics and soldiers noticed that the wounds on some of these men glowed blue-green in the dark. Further, those with glowing wounds seemed to have a better recovery rate than those with wounds that didn’t glow. The glow was called “Angel’s Glow,” and as decades passed after the war, historians and others were not sure if this reported glow was accurate, or was perhaps just a metaphor.
Modern medicine did not exist in 1862. In that era, there was no consistent was to treat infections ofter than amputation. Louis Pasteur only discovered bacteria in that year, 1862. Alexander Fleming wouldn’t discover penicillin until 1928. Sulfa drugs would not be discovered until 1932. All a physician could do is try to keep the wounded soldier comfortable until he recovered or died.
Because nobody (except Pasteur) knew about bacteria or the germ theory of disease, it should not be surprising that people turned to supernatural explanations. However, the story of wounds that glowed blue in the dark was generally either treated as a minor footnote, dismissed as a fantasy, or just forgotten. After all, this report of glowing wounds was unique—no one had observed or reported it before or after.
In 2001, a high school student named Bill Martin became curious about Angel’s Glow. He was a Civil War buff, and his mother, Phyllis Martin, was a microbiologist studying bioluminescent bacteria. Phyllis encouraged her son to do some experiments, so he and a friend named Jonathan Curtis did just that. Their project was called “Civil War Wounds that Glowed.”
It turns out there was indeed a bioluminescent bacterium for which Shiloh was quite hospitable thanks to the presence of nematodes, which are parasitic worms that burrow into the blood vessels of larvae. Inside these nematodes is a bacterium called Photorhabdus luminescens.
Once they have found a suitable host larvae, the nematodes vomit up the bacteria, which produces a chemical that kills the host and all the surrounding microorganisms. This bacteria produces the faint green glow. Once the host has been killed and eaten, the nematodes eat the P. luminescens and begin their search for a new host.
The Martins and Curtis posited that in addition to producing the glow, the bacteria was also most likely responsible for the increased survival rate. The chemical produced by the bacteria while eating the microorganisms probably also consumed other bacteria or pathogens that might enter the wound, thus lessening the likelihood of deadly infection.
It turned out to be fortunate that wounded soldiers were left to languish in the cold and wet, because P. luminescens can only survive in such an environment.
This study was awarded first place at the 2001 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
After reading this story, I have to wonder if any drug developers have followed up on this story. Overuse of antibiotics has caused them to become less effective at fighting bacterial infections due to natural selection, and so we need to develop new ones. Has anyone zeroed in on the substance produced by P. luminescens that kills other bacteria in order to make a drug out of it?
Comments below the fold.
Top Comments (November 5-6, 2022):
From Tangentally Yours:
In the front-page story about Elon Musk scrappingwith AOC over the $8 — in response to a rhetorical question posed by stevemb— I love this one-word top comment that was made by Goatwoman. You can make this fit in so many places. Brava!
Top Mojo (November 4, 2022):
Top Mojo is courtesy of mik! Click here for more on how Top Mojo works.
6) Beyond despicable. by Lefty Coaster +1187) WTF???? Glad he is okay — how did thi … by skyounkin +117
Top Mojo (November 5, 2022):
1) Dolly Parton is a national treasure. by Hellstrom +1614) This is Hogg-Eilish Generation. … by SecauCuss +1268) Strong turnout is our only hope by jugo414 +8713) [embed] by DMentalist +8214) Name ‘em & shame ‘em. by Lex Lurker +8017) GIVE ME BACK MY DST! … by BMScott +7717) Voting - midterms by Denise Oliver Velez +7720) Choice by Denise Oliver Velez +7321) [embed] by Greg Dworkin +7123) CRT by Denise Oliver Velez +6826) POTUS Obama by Denise Oliver Velez +67
Top Photos (November 4, 2022):
Thanks to jotter (RIP) for creating it and elfling for restoring it.
