I’m No Longer Sure What Week This Is?

7 or 8 I would guess.  Still doing ok in the course, but I failed a quiz on British culture and history. I didn’t know, but guessed correctly, that it is an act of treason to put a stamp with the Queen’s picture upside down on a letter. It was all downhill from there. Who knew the Norwegians were involved in the Battle of Hastings  and who really wants to know what kinds of things go into “black pudding?” Here’s a question for you: who recognizes the Dorking Cockerel? 

The Cockerel should not be confused with the Giant Chicken of Bristol best known for his defeat of Brave Sir Robin. Rather, it is a landmark in this delightful little market town on the North Downs about 20 miles south of London, where I met Beth’s family (Katie, Will and Winnie) and had a fine day walking and biking in the English countryside among, get this, vineyards! Climbed a tower too. 

Fantastic day ! And the next was also spent in Dorking where Laurel and other classmates joined me in walking up and down Box Hill, which some of you may recognize as the Olympic biking venue, followed by dinner at the course director’s house.  Great food, avoided any mention of parasites and anything gastrointestinal. Highlight was their pet hedgehog Holly (how they could not have named it Spiny Norman is unfathomable!).

Box Hill in Surrey countryside

Allright, time for another pop question: What do armadillos and humans have in common? They are both purple except for the elephant. Oops, wrong joke.  They are the only known hosts of mycobacterium leprae, the cause of leprosy. Here’s an amazing fact: you have to warn people not to handle armadillos for that reason, which sort of implies that people would handle armadillos if not for that?! Really? Take a look and tell me that it is only leprosy that keeps you away.

 Speaking of leprosy, it is a hard one to rank and actually deserves its own category as the social stigma and ostracism are as devastating as anything we have come to so far: clearly an awful, awful scourge, literally of biblical proportions, but actually easily treated and “cured”, but is prone to get worse with treatment,. New test announced just this week in NEJM describing a rapid diagnostic test that may really revolutionize control and elimination.  The rest of the list includes Anthrax, Liver Flukes (anyone out there eating water cress should see a psychiatrist), more Leishmaniasis (including a patient with Kala Azar (the Indian name for visceral lieshmaniasis) and AIDS, but alive and reasonably well thanks to the miracle of modern medicine), more on diarrhea (do you prefer dysentery or cholera and why? Be sure to support your thesis with evidence drawn from our reading.), and now Nematodes, Trematodes, and eventually Cestodes, none of which are actually toads as it turns out, or even frogs for that matter. All gross, without a doubt, but probably won’t make the top ten, except for perhaps a massive infestation by Ascaris. You be the judge.