Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, non-spore-forming, predominantly motile enterobacteria. Quite a complicated thing pretty much. It was named after Daniel Elmer Salmon, a veterinary pathologist. Him and Theobald Smith were working on finding the bacteria that causes hog cholera and proposed Salmonella as the causal agent. Well, they were wrong. However, they did discover something grand. Salmonella may cause a typhoid fever which pretty much can easily kill a person. My parents say our neighbor’s son died of it when I was little. He was over twenty one and had some eggs for breakfast. Apparently they were undercooked or I do not know what the deal was but he ended up in the hospital soon after that. Unfortunately, they could not save him.

What usually happens is people eat a food with a high concentration of the bacteria. Usually, dairy products or meats that are undercooked may contain a solid amount of these little buggers. Then they go through the stomach and party it up in the intestines cause a bloody diarrhea, nausea and sometimes vomiting. Symptoms usually occur within twelve to twenty four hours. They can last up to seven days leaving the ill person exhausted and dehydrated from a constant diarrhea till the point when they need to stay in the hospital for some time. However, antibiotics usually do the job if it gets very bad.

For kids it is a very big deal though. They can easily die of Salmonella. I mean easily. Their weak immune system might get struck even by a small amount of the bacteria. Apparently, as my parents say, I almost died of it once. At the age of two I was put in a hospital with a high fever, diarrhea and all those other fun symptoms. My parents were extremely worried but the doctors had no idea what was wrong with me. They took a bunch of blood tests but nothing really gave them the right answer. They kept on changing their minds about my sickness. At one point it was a virus, at another bacteria, then something else would prove them wrong. It was a hurricane of illnesses that never stopped until my grandma insisted on moving me to a hospital in Crimea. They did not do much either. Eventually I was cured by an endless amount of antibiotics that were put into me. Eventually, they concluded it was Salmonella but no one really knows whether it was that on or not.

Apparently, it was the first time and only time my grandma has seen my father cry. Just when he entered a hospital in Crimea and looked at my exhausted, dehydrated, pale body he hugged me a tears dropped down his cheeks like water drops on a rainy day. I personally cannot imagine what he felt back then, I could only assume it was a terrible feeling.