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History is rich in ironies and the history of science is richer than most.
One small example is Sir Fred's proposal that life or quasi-life continually rains down from the heavens. He suggested that this is the source of our eternal succession of influenza epidemics. It reflects a cycle of celestial inoculations of virus material from space. Now, the word influenza derives from the Italian. In the eighteenth century they referred to a particular epidemic of flu as an influence, literally meaning an in-flowing.