Synthococcus

In the generally reviled Star Trek episode The Way to Eden, the leader of the Space Hippies is revealed to carry a deadly illness. Referred to as Synthococcus Novae - new artificial spherical bacterium - it is explained as an outgrowth of Starfleet’s “asceptic, sterilized civilization.” It’s the reason Doctor Sevrin cannot continue on his search for the mythical planet of Eden. Virulent and deadly, it would kill inhabitants of any sufficiently un-advanced world he found.  Nonetheless, he insists on continuing his quest, though the Enterprise and Captain Kirk himself stand in the way, since he believes only such a world - disconnected from the modern technology that spawned his infection - can cure him of it. 

Doctor Sevrin is evidently a psychopath, so taking his views as truthful might be ill advised. Still, he rails against the modern artificial hell that has infected him. Is it too obvious that this is metaphorical, that he complains about this "sickness" when it is really the society he hates, wishes to change or at least leave behind? Watching it recently, I was actually impressed with how decent a reading of the counterculture it was. Note that logical, rational Spock is the one able to connect with the group. The implication is that it can’t be all gobbledygook if he understands it. While old GIs like Roddenberry and Heinemann (the screenwriter) couldn't help but be shocked at these crazy kids, they still granted some credence to the idea that even a "perfect" society will have people who don't fit, that there are problems enough to keep any society from being perfect, and that it may be completely logical to want to go somewhere else. It may be my projection of Strauss & Howe’s model onto it, but for a GI view of the time it's not as unreasonable as it might seem on first viewing. Probably because at this late date the clothes don't seem as much like a mockery of that time and those people. 

All of which comes to mind when seeing the lengths to which we sterilize ourselves these days. Hand wipes, diaper wipes, pacifier wipes. Antibiotic soap - as if it wasn’t anti-bacterial to begin with.   There are sterilizer stations by the doors at work - hand underneath gets a squirt of alcohol-infused soapy lotion. People have elaborate rituals when leaving the bathroom to account for other people not washing as well as they might prefer. While I’m not the sort of person blithely to lick a doorknob, to steal a phrase, the yearning for absolute cleanliness always has me expecting an outbreak of synthococcus any day now.

Of course, if you actually were a World War II G.I. you probably saw no problem at all with cleanliness in the extreme. There were probably tales you knew about how washing your hands twice a day saved your life from dysentery, typhoid, tetanus, and diarrhea. When something has direct survival advantages, it gets strongly selected for. And maybe here in the Crisis, every little survival advantage helps.