The beauty and the beasts

 Some of you commented that you like the stories of the parasites and vectors of diseases - and let me tell you both Clay and I could both go on and on and on... (maybe we should start a request line.)

Anyway, for the moment I thought I would show some images that are particularly beautiful - and then move to the beasts.  Here on the left are electron microscope images of trypanosomes.  The top one has red blood cells and a few white cells too.  These are really elegant, and have a flagella that propels them through the bloodstream.  They are responsible for African Sleeping Sickness, Chagas disease and other forms of illness -none of which you want to have. 

Above is the image of some malaria parasites that have taken over the inside of a red blood cell and is reproducing itself.  So beautiful, and yet when you realize that it will release millions of more parasites that will invade other red cells and destroy them, it could be considered a beauty and a beast.

Now the BEASTS...  Below left is the Loa Loa worm.  It causes filariasis which means that a vector - like a fly - injects tiny forms of the worm into you where they grow into long travelers that migrate through your body to irritate you and make you ill.  See the worm in the eye?  Tell me that isn't creepy. apparently it stings and hurts as it moves under your conjunctiva across the eye and disappears... WHERE?  Who knows, and it can live for 15 years.  Why isn't there a horror movie about this?

This fearsome guy is the culex mosquito and he carries Yellow Fever virus around as a gift to you.  This is called a hemorraghic fever because it gives you terrible headache, fever, and organ failure from disseminated bleeding.  Good news is that there is a vaccine.    Phew.

 African sleeping sickness is carried by the
Tse Tse Fly - to the left.  Believe it or not, he or she carries the beautiful but deadly trypanosome from the top of this post in the gut and then the saliva and injects it into you.  Yes, he spits or vomits the parasite into your circulation where it multiplies and unbelievably evades your immune system because it changes it's protein coat every week or so, making it "new" to your immune system.  Hence the recurrent fevers, as your body tries to mount a response each time.  Clever beasts.

This is a body louse (or lice).  He or she is holding an egg (or operculum) on the shaft of a hair.  Of course lice can be just a bother, and not really a beast (unless you have had to spend hours combing your kids hair with a nit comb to get rid of the buggers - then they are beasts).  But they also carry disease - specifically Typhus (caused by the bacteria Rickettsia or the spirochete Borrelia which are carried inside the louse, and then when you squish them they get into your bloodstream from a tiny abrasion or bite).  Millions of people died in WWII in the ghettos and concentration camps from typhus - and many soldiers too.  Now typhus is common in refugee camp situations... Beware the louse!

Finally, a tapeworm.   It is remarkable to think that millions and millions of people have these attached on the inside of their intestines for years.  Nice mouthparts to hold onto you, eh?  They feed on your blood and your food while shedding bits of themselves in your stool so they can get inside other people.  (Well, if this isn't a good reason for vigorous hand washing I don't know what is.)

Till next time.