The Beauty of Viruses

There's an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "Silicon Avatar" that depicts an entity that can wipe out whole populations of people but is also, to many observers, exceedingly beautiful. To its victims it is an evil; in a universe that takes no sides, however, it is just a being that does what it does, according to the natural order of its structure and functions.

I think of viruses in much the same way. They are intriguing, even elegant; but to us, they are enemies, evil things to be destroyed. Yet all they do is function according to their intrinsic make-up, surviving or not presumably without sentience or intention. We as patients cry, "How could this happen to me?" To a virus, though, infection is not happening "to" anyone or being done to anyone; it simply is. Very often it's the defenses we mount that produce discomfort and suffering, though of course without those defenses that leave us feeling so ill, we would succumb to our microscopic but powerful little "enemies."

Mixed media artist and phlebotomist Laura Splan captures their terrible beauty in these gorgeous lace doilies, which I learned about through Martina Scholtens at FreshMD. Enjoy.

HIV

Herpes

SARS

Hepadna

Influenza