Leo T. reviewed People, Parasites, and Plowshares: Learning From Our Body's Most Terrifying Invaders on + 1775 more book reviews
An excellent book, a good read; also useful as supplementary reading for interested secondary students; we learn of the life cycles of long-lived parasites. All chapters conclude with 'Plowshares,' suggestions on how further study (chronically underfunded) of parasites in the lab may lead to the discovery of ways to "apply their strategies for survival to our own world (xviii)." The author is very well qualified, a popular professor, and fosters understanding with asides referencing movies and the like; some may find his tone questionable as he makes bold assertions. While there are 'popular' elements in his lectures and chapters, he includes sufficient detail about the life cycle of the various parasites that readers need to recall their high school biology class, even if it was fifty years ago.
Trichinella spiralis is a long-lived parasite that can live on after the death of its host, such as in the meat that is eaten later by a carnivore, and so undercooked bacon is notorious for trichinosis. Chapter 1: This New House. As an inquiring medical student John Paget took a microscope to the 'sandy diapragm' sample from an autopsy and saw tiny worms on 2 February 1835. Dr. Despommier describes the life cycle of T. spiralis in careful detail, emphasizing its clever adaptations that allow the parasite to enjoy a long life. The chapter concludes with hopes that further research might allow Trichinella's use in treating type one diabetes.
Hookworm in the South. Chapter 2: Hooked on Parasites. The lethargic manner of Southerners was conspicuous and Charles W. Stiles was an early investigator of the American variety, Dr. Arthur Looss already being engaged in working out the life cycle of the African variety. The hookworm was probably introduced into the Americas by the slave trade. In 1909 Frederick T. Gates heard out Stiles when he related the results of his investigations, and passed on the information to John D. Rockefeller who funded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for Eradication of Hookworm. The larva hid in soft, loamy soils and could crawl out to infect a new host as opportunity arose. Their solution was outhouses with a pit at least four feet deep as well as finding that thymol reduced the worm burden of children and adults. Today it is believed that hookworm was best reduced by the movement of people out of the South. The Rockefeller Foundation was chartered in 1913 in New York state and Dr. Despommier says the work on hookworm enlivened state and city public health services, the U.S. Public Health Service (1912), and the U.S. Geological Survey (1878) as information about soil types was sought.
Chapter 3: Houdini's Nefarious Cousins. Sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, etc. The 'Golden Age' of parisitology was 1890-1910. The African Trypanosomes were encountered by Europeans as they tried to raise cattle in Africa, Africa being the land of opportunity for those interested in studying new infectious diseases. The Trypanosomes are single-celled organisms that infect many mammals that thus serve as a reservoir. While the vector in Africa is often the tse-tse fly, the kissing bug does the job in the Americas, both biting and defecating (to leave room for its meal of fresh blood) feces containing the parasites. Chagas disease gradually wears its host down with successive infections because it outwits the body's defenses. Future research might find a way to discover and employ the cloaking mechanisms of these long-lived parasites in avoiding rejection of tissue transplants.
Chapter 4. A Parasite For All Seasons. T. gondi will infect most any type of cell in the body and is largely a zoonosis, found especially in feral cats and their many relatives but may be transmitted to humans in many ways: arthropod vectors, sexual contact, sneezing, fecally contaminated water and food, contaminated blood transfusions, and congenitally. Meat eaters are the main agent in the spread of T. gondi worldwide and so those people resident in the Arctic are nearly all carriers. This scourge hides dormant in cells while interleukin-12 cleans up most of it from the body. Thus the lower level of IL-12 as HIV ensures less is produced so it can reproduce inside the body's T-cells allows T. gondi to flare up. Drugs to control T. gondi are now part of the AIDS cocktail.
Chapter 5. Dr. Despommier begins by writing in general about the age-old mingled lifes of parasites and mankind, wherein neither kills off the other, although it may have taken the survival of individuals with particular mutations. Even today half of the farmers of the world utilize human waste as fertilizer and the life cycles of three different geohelmiths are considered, measures that are being taken to improve health outcomes, and possible employment of clever adaptations used by the intestinal parasitic worms in treating Chrohn's Disease, for example.
Undercooked beef and tapeworm infection. Chapter 6: The Long and Short of It. Tapeworms being relatively common in Europe, study of them resulted in the definition of the term 'parasite' in the 18th C. Dr. Despommier notes a motile tapeworm segment containing eggs can climb out of your rectum anywhere, anytime. It is not true that harboring a tapeworm allows one to lose wait. Taenia solium is harbored by pigs but can't differentiate between pigs and mankind, many farmers raise pigs, and neurocyticercosis is an invasion of the central nervous system. Note the latter disease's introduction to New Guinea by pigs sent from Indonesia. Worms are much more sophisticated than parasites such as fleas, ticks, mosquitos, leeches, and vampire bats.
Chapter 7. Guinea worm's only host is mankind and so it is being eliminated because of cooperation among the health departments of affected nations, the UN, and especially the Carter Center of Georgia. The latter supplies, for the asking, a special cloth filter that allows the water from the step wells be swept of copecods that harbor the larvae of the Guinea worm. Unfortunately, the other microbes that cause diarrheal diseases remain.
Chapter 8. Onchocerca volvulus, Penicillin, Dr. Fleming's early warning about bacterial resistance, looming elimination of river blindness in West Africa and similar climates in the Americas where slaves were employed, and a heartfelt plea that the flora and fauna of the world be conserved for future employment against illness using frogs as an exemplar.
No footnotes, sufficient illustrations, limited glossary, limited list of 'further reading' by chapter, and good index.
Trichinella spiralis is a long-lived parasite that can live on after the death of its host, such as in the meat that is eaten later by a carnivore, and so undercooked bacon is notorious for trichinosis. Chapter 1: This New House. As an inquiring medical student John Paget took a microscope to the 'sandy diapragm' sample from an autopsy and saw tiny worms on 2 February 1835. Dr. Despommier describes the life cycle of T. spiralis in careful detail, emphasizing its clever adaptations that allow the parasite to enjoy a long life. The chapter concludes with hopes that further research might allow Trichinella's use in treating type one diabetes.
Hookworm in the South. Chapter 2: Hooked on Parasites. The lethargic manner of Southerners was conspicuous and Charles W. Stiles was an early investigator of the American variety, Dr. Arthur Looss already being engaged in working out the life cycle of the African variety. The hookworm was probably introduced into the Americas by the slave trade. In 1909 Frederick T. Gates heard out Stiles when he related the results of his investigations, and passed on the information to John D. Rockefeller who funded the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for Eradication of Hookworm. The larva hid in soft, loamy soils and could crawl out to infect a new host as opportunity arose. Their solution was outhouses with a pit at least four feet deep as well as finding that thymol reduced the worm burden of children and adults. Today it is believed that hookworm was best reduced by the movement of people out of the South. The Rockefeller Foundation was chartered in 1913 in New York state and Dr. Despommier says the work on hookworm enlivened state and city public health services, the U.S. Public Health Service (1912), and the U.S. Geological Survey (1878) as information about soil types was sought.
Chapter 3: Houdini's Nefarious Cousins. Sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, etc. The 'Golden Age' of parisitology was 1890-1910. The African Trypanosomes were encountered by Europeans as they tried to raise cattle in Africa, Africa being the land of opportunity for those interested in studying new infectious diseases. The Trypanosomes are single-celled organisms that infect many mammals that thus serve as a reservoir. While the vector in Africa is often the tse-tse fly, the kissing bug does the job in the Americas, both biting and defecating (to leave room for its meal of fresh blood) feces containing the parasites. Chagas disease gradually wears its host down with successive infections because it outwits the body's defenses. Future research might find a way to discover and employ the cloaking mechanisms of these long-lived parasites in avoiding rejection of tissue transplants.
Chapter 4. A Parasite For All Seasons. T. gondi will infect most any type of cell in the body and is largely a zoonosis, found especially in feral cats and their many relatives but may be transmitted to humans in many ways: arthropod vectors, sexual contact, sneezing, fecally contaminated water and food, contaminated blood transfusions, and congenitally. Meat eaters are the main agent in the spread of T. gondi worldwide and so those people resident in the Arctic are nearly all carriers. This scourge hides dormant in cells while interleukin-12 cleans up most of it from the body. Thus the lower level of IL-12 as HIV ensures less is produced so it can reproduce inside the body's T-cells allows T. gondi to flare up. Drugs to control T. gondi are now part of the AIDS cocktail.
Chapter 5. Dr. Despommier begins by writing in general about the age-old mingled lifes of parasites and mankind, wherein neither kills off the other, although it may have taken the survival of individuals with particular mutations. Even today half of the farmers of the world utilize human waste as fertilizer and the life cycles of three different geohelmiths are considered, measures that are being taken to improve health outcomes, and possible employment of clever adaptations used by the intestinal parasitic worms in treating Chrohn's Disease, for example.
Undercooked beef and tapeworm infection. Chapter 6: The Long and Short of It. Tapeworms being relatively common in Europe, study of them resulted in the definition of the term 'parasite' in the 18th C. Dr. Despommier notes a motile tapeworm segment containing eggs can climb out of your rectum anywhere, anytime. It is not true that harboring a tapeworm allows one to lose wait. Taenia solium is harbored by pigs but can't differentiate between pigs and mankind, many farmers raise pigs, and neurocyticercosis is an invasion of the central nervous system. Note the latter disease's introduction to New Guinea by pigs sent from Indonesia. Worms are much more sophisticated than parasites such as fleas, ticks, mosquitos, leeches, and vampire bats.
Chapter 7. Guinea worm's only host is mankind and so it is being eliminated because of cooperation among the health departments of affected nations, the UN, and especially the Carter Center of Georgia. The latter supplies, for the asking, a special cloth filter that allows the water from the step wells be swept of copecods that harbor the larvae of the Guinea worm. Unfortunately, the other microbes that cause diarrheal diseases remain.
Chapter 8. Onchocerca volvulus, Penicillin, Dr. Fleming's early warning about bacterial resistance, looming elimination of river blindness in West Africa and similar climates in the Americas where slaves were employed, and a heartfelt plea that the flora and fauna of the world be conserved for future employment against illness using frogs as an exemplar.
No footnotes, sufficient illustrations, limited glossary, limited list of 'further reading' by chapter, and good index.
