Word: earthworms
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Seven inches long, first cousin to the earthworm but with livelier ambitions, Ascaris lumbricoides is one of the commonest parasites found in the intestines of man. The worms, which usually plague children more than adults, enter the body in infected vegetables, may cause diarrhea, colic, convulsions. Standard anthelmintic (worm-killer) for ascarids is bitter oil of chenopodium (wormseed oil), usually given in capsule form. Last week in Science, Chemists Julius Berger and Conrado Frederico Asenjo of the University of Wisconsin stood up for a primitive worm-killer which is sweeter, cheaper, and just as powerful: fresh pineapple juice...
Bishop Berkeley once said, "Whatever the world thinks, he who hath not much meditated upon God, the human mind, and the summon bonum, may possibly make a thriving earthworm, but will most indubitably make a sorry patriot and a sorry statesman...
Last week two learned pharmacologists bickered politely over intestinal worms. The roundworm, which resembles the earthworm in form, is the most common parasite which infests the intestines of human beings. Children between the ages of three and ten are especially good hosts for these worms. Male roundworms grow four to eight inches long, females seven to twelve inches. In some cases as many as 1,000 have been found, but usually only half a dozen roundworms infest an intestine. They live on blood drained from the intestinal wall...
Because roundworms and earthworms look alike, from time immemorial the lethal effects of roundworm vermicides have first been tried on earthworms before application to humans. Only last spring Pharmacologist Glenn Llewellyn Jenkins of the University of Maryland, chemist and assiduous inventor of synthetic drugs, published an article in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association on "Rational Use of the Earthworm for the Evaluation of Vermicides." This profoundly agitated Pharmacologist Paul Dudley Lamson of Vanderbilt University, caused him to write a vigorous rebuttal which Science published last week. Snapped Professor Lamson: "The human Ascaris [roundworm] is a parasitic animal living...
...When the conversational medicine ball had been thrown back and forth enough this Sunday morning, we decided to put the question of the price for eating an earthworm to the test. Upshot: a friend of mine (incidentally a Harvard student-perhaps that explains it) totally consumed a fairly good-sized angleworm for the small fee of 25?. We concluded that Dr. Thorndike's price of $100 was a little high. Would he be interested...