In brief Gory stories of symbiosis

摘要

If you invited Eugene Kaplan to a dinner party, you probably wouldn't want him to recount too many anecdotes. Kaplan is a parasitologist and natural-born storyteller who admits to making his stories as unashamedly lurid as possible to keep his students awake enough to learn.Even those with the strongest of constitutions will squirm at some of the tales in What's Eating You? People and Parasites. There is the story of infection with Leishmania braziliensis, which rots away mucous membranes, such as those in the mouth and nose, so that they become "a raw, festering hole in the face". Then there is the spaghetti-like guinea worm that erupts from blisters in the skin.