One at a Time? // Braylan Stringfellow
On page 195 of The Plague, Tarrou brings up Cottard’s theory about how no one ever has two diseases at the same time. He specifically mentions how people with incurable diseases like cancer do not catch things like the plague (Camus). He brings up a good point because I have rarely heard of people having two illnesses at once. I have heard of people having the flu or COVID and then it becoming pneumonia, or cancer patients at the end of there life catching the flu and them dying from it. Other than those two, I have never heard of people having two diseases at once.
We have all seen Cottard’s theory play out in our COVID plague. I remember the winter after COVID first started that very few people caught the flu. It seemed that anyone who got sick had COVID. I found it weird how no one got the flu but according to Cottard’s theory, they could not get the flu because the got COVID first and you can not have both.
I got curious as to whether or not this theory is correct because it does explain what I has seen. I have discovered that it is possible to have two different diseases at the same time. The reason it seems that you only can have one is because the symptoms for the two diseases are very similar so you may only be diagnosed with one. This makes sense as to why you may think that you only have one since each one feels the same. So the theory is incorrect which is sad because this theory is what gave Cottard hope during the plague (Camus 196).
I commented on Emma Kate Patterson’s and Emily Otts’ post
The theory is heavily influenced by folklore. I remember my great-grandmother saying similar things when Covid-19 first started. It is somewhat reasonable to assume that, but it is false for many reasons. Often whatever sickness is most life threatening is given attention, however it does not negate the possibility of contracting another one.
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