Mad Cow

Mad Cow

As to the phenomenon of mad cow if somebody may be considered mad, the one is undoubtedly man. In fact a cow isn’t certainly able to reason, while man has deliberately decided to turn a herbivore into a carnivore, even better into a cannibal, since he has fed a ruminant on the converted remains of creatures of its own species: hides, fats, collagen and muscular parts, the so called fleshings (Mad Cow).

Nature’s answer was prion[1] which is neither a bacterium nor a virus. Prion is only a protein, Protease resistente protein (Prp), coming from a chemical or spontaneous modification of the gene that codifies it (PrNP). When a prionic protein gets in touch with a healthy one in the cerebral tissues of an animal affected by the mad cow disease, it is modified.

Prion-Protein

The accumulation of infectious proteins fills the brain[2] with holes. What’s extraordinary is that neither a virus nor a bacterium could survive the processes through which animal remains are converted into foofstuffs. Prion, a simple protein, can, on the contrary, be conveyed into dried foodstuffs as well. Even if in this case we could say that everything depends on the chance, yet, among all the probable chances, nature has selected something highly specific.

Prion can’t be defined a microorganism, but finally, after overcoming the dangers of the treatments man subjects animal refuses to, it acts with the same means of viruses and bacteria just against the human action which turns herbivores into cannibals. On the other hand while man is inclined to more and more complex actions, for viruses there wasn’t a stable increase as to complexity or appearance of new powers, but with prion nature tries to enforce its laws with a simple mechanism of self-replication.

Mad Cow Disease

1] Nasi S. Meno di un virus. In: Il virus Stratega. Published by F. Dianzani. Science Dossier, an editorial insert enclosed to the number 31^st Dec.1988. Giunti Editore Firenze.

[2] The pathology, in man, is called Creutzelfedt-Jakob disease and at the beginning it reveals with psychiatric troubles (depression, anxiety, psychosis). In about six months the first symptoms of the disease appear: anomalous and confused body movements which evolve till to make walking difficult.

 Translated from “Il Virus Intelligente” by Enrica Narducci