Sean Bellamy Mcnulty

“That the AIDS pandemic is traceable to a single contingent event. That this event involved a bloody interaction between one chimpanzee and one human. That it occurred in southeastern Cameroon, around the year 1908, give or take. That it led to the proliferation of one strain of virus, now known as HIV-1 group M. That this virus was probably lethal in chimpanzees before the spillover occurred, and that it was certainly lethal in humans afterward. That from southeastern Cameroon it must have traveled downriver, along the Sangha and then the Congo, to Brazzaville and Léopoldville. That from those entrepôts it spread to the world.”
― David Quammen, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

“So much for where as well as when. AIDS began with a spillover from one chimp to one human, in southeastern Cameroon, no later than 1908 (give or take a margin of error), and grew slowly but inexorably from there.”
― David Quammen, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

“His report described a typical beka initiation, complete with slaughtered sheep and chickens, the neck of a tortoise (because it resembles a penis), and “virgin lasses” in attendance through a long prelude that culminates at four in the morning.”
― David Quammen, Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

“Of each particular thing, ask:
“What is it in itself, in its own construction?” —Marcus Aurelius”
― Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why