Toxins love to get you while you're young. Lead mercury secondhand smoke and sundry other environmental nasties do a lot more damage when tissue is immature vulnerable and growing than when it's mature and comparatively fixed.
Man is an exception whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God then he is a disease of the dust. If it is not true that a divine being fell then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.
