Many people will not remember his name, and in fact may never even have known it, but mention The Boy in the Bubble and that will jog a memory. David was that boy, the boy who spent his entire life within a “plastic isolator bubble to protect him from the germs that his body could not fend off”. He suffered from a condition known as Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID).

SCID is actually a group of inherited disorders characterized by a lack of immune response. It occurs when a child lacks lymphocytes, the specialized white blood cells that the body uses to fight infection.

If this condition is not diagnosed early it is often fatal within the first year. Now it is treatable in most cases, but such was not the case in the 1970’s when David was born. As such doctor’s found a way to make sure his birth was kept sterile and that he was exposed to open air for as small amount of time as possible. For all of David’s 12 years of life he lived inside his bubble, and though he lived such a short time, his contributions to science were enormous.

I mention all this simple because I found this site on PBS tonight and found it extremely interesting. The life he led is something that will never be duplicated ever again, and is a singular time period in history that will forever be unique.