Hooked on Worms

[Progenitor A]

In the West, we are too precious, too clean, too fussy. We suffer from auto-immune disease- Hay fever, MS, Rheumatoid arthritis, nut allergy .....
In Africa and S America these AID hardly exist

Go to Nottingham University
There a Dr Pritchard is experimenting with hook-Worms on mice. The AID in mice disappears

Enter one |American a Mr Jasper.
Mr Jasper suffers terribly from AID, must stay indoors, allergic to cats -- all that relives him is massive doses of steroids. Jasper goes very fat - gross and hi personal life suffers - estrangement from wife and kids

He reads of Dr Pritchards experiments

Off goes Jasper to Cameroon and wades in village cess-pits hoping that hook worms will crawl into the soles of his feet, swim in his blood stream enter his lungs, be coughed into his stomach, where their sharp little teeth will sink into the wall of his belly and suck blood

He does and they do

Wonderful! His AID disappear, and he is slim, healthy and happy.
He starts to sell hook-worms and has a client base of relieved AID sufferers

Meanwhile back at Nottingham Dr Pritchard is unhappy. He is a scientist, Jasper is not. Dr Pritchard is worried that his studies have been usurped by a non-scientist, But he also hopes that these unauthorised experiment by Jasper will help lead to a medical breakthrough

Hooked?
autoimmunetherapies.com/

[abacus9900]

I think some people can 'convince' themselves sometimes of being allergic to certain things. We tend in our modern way of living to cut ourselves off too much from nature and 'dirt' and so over-sensitize our mind and body to things that are not normally harmful. I think it does the immune system some good in adapting to potential threats that it should be designed to overcome and if not tested enough could become a bit vulnerable.

[jonjel]

I read an article which claimed that the incidence of hay-fever and other allergies is considerably lower in those people who have been brought up on farms.

Maybe they were virtually unknown when we were a largely agrarian society.

[principled]

Naymissus
I read about this treatment a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly the number of worms in the gut must be carefully controlled.

We are certainly becoming a little OTT about cleanliness. It now seems to be almost normal for people to carry alcohol wipes, which they appear to use every time they touch something that isn't theirs.

I remember my daughter eating earth and despite all the bacteria it contained she didn't seem to be affected. Just one generation later we have children who aren't allowed to play outside and spend most of the time in a super-clean capsule they call home, their immune system denied the gradual exposure to different bacteria.

On a personal note, when I started teaching 30 years ago the number of asthmatics in the average class was near to zero. At the end of my career that had risen to between 3 and 5. There's something causing that rapid rise , that's for sure.