| Contact Us | Home |
 |
Bacteria on the other hand are living organisms consisting of one cell. Cells have “walls” around them that protect them. When measured bacteria can be 1000 nanometers long. Bacteria can reproduce independently and are found in all living things. We need bacteria in our daily lives and most are threatening to humans. Bacteria help generate our food products (cheese and yogurt) and assist the process of organic waste disposal. However, some bacteria are detrimental to human life and a cause of disease. If the virus that were the size of a mouse compare itself to the size of bacteria it would be looking at a larger fat rat. It is common knowledge that colds are produced by viruses and not by bacteria. Scientists have found more than 200 separate kinds of viruses that can cause a cold. Antibiotics were invented to attack bacteria, not viruses, so there are no antibiotics that will alleviate the symptoms or cause of the common cold.
|
|||
Children frequently catch the common cold and for parents, repeated cases can become difficult to deal with. Usually we treat colds with over-the-counter medications, but many parents wonder about suitable antibiotic treatments for this common ailment. Antibiotics were first used to treat disease, viruses and bacteria during the 1940s and they have been very productive and have saved many lives over the years. Before we can address the suitability for antibiotics as a tool against the common cold, we need to understand how viruses and bacteria function. Viruses are almost immeasurably small. We use a scale of a billionth of a meter to measure their size and discover that most are from 20 nanometers to 250 nanometers long. They can only exist and reproduce in living cells, and once in a living cell they begin to produce virus particles. If viruses were the size of a mouse, humans would be the size of a large brontosaurus. |
||||
