Selected Poems about PARASITES

CURRENT CONTENTS:
Bedbugs

Cat fleas

Endoparasites

Flea species

Geohelminths

Hog lice

The parasitologist

Authors' Note:  Details of the allegory: The protagonist needed some vacation following a busy time of downsizing and changing residences. A few days prior to taking off on Snowbird flight 203, it became obvious that a domestic infestation of bedbugs, presumably acquired during the household move, had pre-empted his search for a subtropical respite. 

Authors' Note: 

Our voracious protagonist, Ctenocephalides felis, is the chief ectoparasite inflicting misery on canine as well as feline housepets in North America. Unfortunately, its life-cycle — egg, larva, pupa, adult (the hopping wingless blood-sucker), can result in its persistence for up to a year in a warm environment, like the carpet in your rented flat (apartment). In the absence of its usual victims, the flea will consider humans as a predation target of secondary interest. Another piece of bad news is that, through longstanding attempts at control, the species is becoming resistant to insecticides.

Authors' Note:   The term parasite derives via Latin from an old Greek term meaning "one who dines at another's table". To clarify more fully Lyle's terse explanation in the verse, endoparasites, taking up residence inside their host, get their nutrients by passive absorption or by burrowing in the tissues of their host, which could be you! There are very few cases where they spontaneously leave to go to another restaurant. Fortunately, effective treatments have been developed for many of these types of infestation.

Authors' Note: The fleas, wingless blood-sucking hopping insects, infest and make miserable a variety of warm-blooded host species including most famously man and dog. In America, the vast majority of infestations of domestic pests involve the cat flea, Ctenophalides felis, as described above.

Authors' Note: TERMS FOR WORMS:

Intestinal endoparasites belonging to the phylum Nematoda are transmitted primarily through contaminated soil; they include members of these worm-families that produce systemic human disease: roundworms, hookworms, whipworms. 

Authors' Note: This agricultural pest, Haematopinus suis, commonly known as the hog louse, lives its life only on porcine hosts, with the larvae (nymphs) concentrating on the head region. Apparently, infestations of swine herds can be treated easily with avermectins, a class of veterinary antibiotics.

 Authors' Note: The term host has become a classic descriptor used in infectious diseases, and particularly in parasitology, although such usage may seem distasteful to many. Symbiosis describes a relationship in which the parasitized host and the invading organisms share a mutually beneficial association.

Here's a LIST OF LINKS to collections of intriguing poems (over 160 of these!) on medical/dental topics that can now be found on various posts. 

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