It just gets better

Yes, it does. Really.

How naive I have been! To put all of my fascination into one bug. I should have known that toxo is not the only conniver in the cat. Since my last realization, I have learned many more incredible tidbits... a six degrees of infection, if you will...

1. Most people are probably pretty careful with handwashing when they have diarrhea. Giardia is a mostly waterborne parasite that causes diarrhea, flatulence, belching, and weight loss. Giardia trophozoites, which are heavily present in diarrhea, are not infective. However, Giardia cysts, which are infective, are excreted more in solid stool, when a person may not be as careful. So, just when you think you are better, out and about with your friends, you are actually more infective than when you were suffering alone on your toilet.

2. Plasmodium species, the cause of malaria, circulating in the blood stream makes a person smell more attractive to mosquitoes. Mmmm, the scent of nasty blood parasites...not really the scent I would pick on a Friday night, but we all have our weaknesses. Anyway, mosquitoes preferentially bite those that have malaria. More mosquito bites from infected blood = more transmission for the little malaria buggers.

3. Cystic cuisine. This one just makes me shudder. Now, I won't totally gross you out with pictures of organs literally diamond encrusted with huge fluid filled cycts, but cystic hydatid disease is photogenically terrifying. As a disease of domesticates, you would think that the meat of such an animal would be tossed, heaved into oblivion, never to be consumed by any self-respecting carnivore. Ah, parasitology. If there is a bug, then there is a way. Might be roundabout, but the path will be forged. I used to have a doberman that just loved horse poop. Yep, dogs also love cystic ravaged organs, evidently. At slaughterhouses, in homes, or out in the fields, domestic cows, sheep, or any animal used for food is prepared and diseased meat is discarded to the waiting dogs who, when given a choice, will eat the cyst filled nastiness over healthy meat. A while later, our canine friends are just swimming with egg-producing worms. The eggs end up on the dog's fur, a child pets the dog, goes home, and has a sandwich. Child ingests eggs and pretty soon, their liver and lungs are just covered in cysts. Not fun.

4. Would you like some fleas with that? Tapeworms just love their humans. An unreciprocated love, to be sure. To make themselves more accessible to us, their motherload of nutritional goodness, they allow canine fleas to eat their babies. Yes, little puppies' flea larvae eat the eggs of the tapeworm. You would think this would be the end of that, but no, those little tapeworm eggs do just fine in the flea stomach. Along comes the unsuspecting toddler, swooning all over the slobbery puppy. Dog licks little child, tapeworm-egg-infested-flea jumps in kid's mouth, and child gets tapeworm infection.

5. The guinea worm has been a scourge of humanity for many eons. It is transmitted through contaminated water and, once ingested, the worm usually migrates to the foot, moves in, and takes up housekeeping. This includes curb appeal. The female creates a lesion and emerges from under the skin to hang out, half submerged, on a person's foot. Since she is still firmly attached inside the foot, the worm is very hard to get rid of once established. The available treatment does not eradicate the worm, but does make it pliable, so as the female takes her daily stroll, she can be attached to a stick and slowly wound around it, preventing her from retreating back into the human appendage. In fact, the symbol of medicine, the Rod of Asclepius, was thought to arise from the practice of winding the worm around a stick (the sexy snake replaced the eewy worm in the middle ages). The worm can eventually be pulled out over time, centimeter by centimeter (worms can be over 3 ft long, so over 90 cm). So, what amazing selective advantage did this worm develop, you ask? As you can imagine, the lesion hurts. However, for some reason, putting the lesion in water will take the debilitating pain immediately away. Gone, feels better, aaaahhhhhh. Thus, people with guinea worm hang out by the community water hole all day, their feet dangling in the cool goodness. Meanwhile, the immersed female worm pulls out her uterus to release her spawn. Talk about reproductive freedom. She contaminates the entire village's water supply, thus ensuring the survival of her brood.

The cycle of life continues.