—Al Gore, Earth in the Balance, 1992 That humanity had grossly underestimated the microbes was no longer, as the world approached the twenty-first century, a matter of doubt. The microbes were winning. The debate centered not on whether Homo sapiens was increasingly challenged by microscopic competitors for domination of the planet; rather, arguments among scientists focused on the whys, hows, and whens of an acknowledged threat. It was the virologists, and one exceptional bacteriologist, who started the debate in 1989, but they were quickly joined by scientists and physicians representing fields as diverse as entomology, pediatric infectious disease, marine mammal biology, atmospheric chemistry, and nucleic genetics. Separated by enormous linguistic and perceptual gulfs, the researchers sought a common language and lens through which they could collectively analyze and interpret microbial events. There had never really been a discipline of medical microbial ecology, though some exceptional scientists had, over the years, tried to frame disease and environmental issues in a manner that embraced the full range of events at the microscopic level.
