How did Goku catch the heart virus?

[Domon]

How can someone make a cure if only one person has had the disease or virus and has already died? The makers of the cure would have had to test the cure on patients that have the virus in order to make sure it works. It's possible that they did make the cure just for the purpose of helping Goku when Trunks travels to the past but how would they know that it would work on him?

I think we're seeing some more assumptions here. Why the idea that Goku is the one and only person on Earth to have contracted the virus? That there is a cure later on would suggest that there was enough of it going on to bother with developing a cure in the first place.

Also, I don't get the impression that the cure was specially designed for Goku. There are many diseases that are easily cureable now that would've been fatal years and years ago. This heart virus would appear to be one of them.

[Steven Perry]

I think we're seeing some more assumptions here. Why the idea that Goku is the one and only person on Earth to have contracted the virus?

Assumptions are awfully fun! Y'know, Goku could've inherited it from his father. Trunks gives us the impression that he caught it off of someone, but we know all too well that Trunks isn't always right. Bulma isn't always right either.

Bulma could've easily taken Goku in for examination during those 6 months before the Androids arrived. I'm pretty sure that she'd want to find the cause of her best friend's death. She has vast amounts of technology at her disposal, and is the daughter of Capsule Corporation's owner. What's stopping her from being able to find the cause? Remember, the Dragonball world has capsules that can somehow compress houses- so what's stopping her from carrying out such a simple task, like isolating the virus? Dragonball logic is different from real-world logic.

That there is a cure later on would suggest that there was enough of it going on to bother with developing a cure in the first place. Also, I don't get the impression that the cure was specially designed for Goku.

The fate of the Earth depends on the existence of the cure; if Goku survives, they have a MUCH greater chance of killing those androids. If that isn't a big enough reason, I don't know what is. Now, if Bulma did isolate that virus... she'd soon see its potential when in the process of making the time machine.

[Pedro The Hutt]

As I like to say. =D He caught it through the power of plot device!

[Domon]

Trunks gives us the impression that he caught it off of someone

I don't see where this is coming from. Where's the source of this implication? (honest question here, I'll be happy to look it up if told where to find it)

so what's stopping her from carrying out such a simple task, like isolating the virus?

I'm not so sure most scientists would call isolating a virus a "simple task". Also, while I've no doubt the technology exists for Bulma to isolate a virus, that's different than finding a cure for it. To the best of my recollection, Bulma was never said to have any medical expertise(granted, nothing says she doesn't, so it may not be outside the realm of possibility).

The fate of the Earth depends on the existence of the cure; if Goku survives, they have a MUCH greater chance of killing those androids. If that isn't a big enough reason, I don't know what is.

Again, there's that assumption that the cure was developed for no other reasons than to save Goku. We don't know who made it, or when. All we're told is that there's this cure avaliable some 20 years down the line. Though that could easily mean it was made just a few months after Goku died, or a few years, we're not given an exact time frame.


Which of course, brings us back to the central problem here. As desirecampbell said, most of this is guesswork and making guesses upon guesses upon guesses. There's nothing to say that Bulma didn't create the antidote, but I tend to go against this idea since nothing suggests that she did. I simply prefer to avoid making connections where none is said or apparent. Of course, this is all Toriyama's fault, as he set up this plot device without going into details about it.


The Cell saga is one big plothole.