Disturbing Interview with Biologists

This afternoon at the South African Mountain Conference, Shereen and I held a fascinating interview with lepidopterist (butterfly guy) and explorer Julian Bayliss. Afterwards, a gathering of legendary explorers ensued including Steve Goodman (Madagascan biologist) and Carl Bruessow (climber of 47 of the 50 highest mountains of Africa). We gathered round a coffee table and explored a variety of topics. One such topic was that of tropical diseases. Julian started off this discussion showing pictures of himself with swollen lips, cheeks and ears. A result of having an anaphylactic reaction to a tick infestation acquired while bushwhacking through wherethefuckarewe grass.

Steve rejoined with a memory of seeing something wriggling in his eye. His wife then looked on aghast as a loa loa worm protruded from his eye before tucking back in behind the eye. This is the parasitic filarial nematode transmitted by deerflies of the genus Chrysops. Loiasis is the condition caused by these worms burrowing through the subcutaneous tissues. Filarial refers to the family of nematodes (roundworms) of the family Filariidae transmitted by the bites of flies that includes the disease elephantiasis that leads to a grotesque enlarging of the lymphatic nodes, and onchocerciasis, river-blindness. Amazingly, Loa loa does not live in the saliva of the fly, but rather feeds on the thoracic muscles of the fly and then migrates to the proboscis to hop inboard the mammalian host when the fly bites. It then doesn't take the easy route via the bloodstream, but migrates through subcutaneous tissue the length of the body, if necessary, to the eye. It then lays microfilariae that course around the bloodstream until they get sucked up by the fly to continue the cycle again.

Julian had another worm tale to follow. From eating fruit containing eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides, he contracted ascariasis. The eggs hatched into larvae in his intestines before migrating through his bloodstream where they lodged in his heart. Here they languished until finally breaking through his heart ventricles into his lungs. There they matured for 10–14 days before breaking through the alveolar walls of the lungs. They are then coughed up, swallowed, and return to the intestines to develop into adult worms and complete their life cycle. Or they would have, if the London doctors hadn't requested that he gestate them until such time as they could aquire adult stages for research!

A newcomer, Ara Monadjem, a rodent and bat mammologist was asked for his most severe disease. The resulting offer yielded a collective and enthusiastic set of murmurs. He had nearly died when contracting Lassa fever, a haemorrhagic disease in the Arenavirus family with symptoms similar to that of the Ebola virus that leads to general bleeding from the internal organs. It's generally received from ingesting the saliva, faeces or urine of rats (in his case possibly of the flying kind?). Delightfully, human-human spread is possible through infected bodily fluids. It is endemic to four countries we're going through: Nigeria, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Infected individuals may be asymptomatic or experience a range of symptoms from headaches, fever, weakness, muscle aches, vomiting, hearing loss, and my favourite, bleeding from the mouth, nose or gastrointestinal tract. The antiviral drug Ribavirin is used as treatment.

Then someone who shall remain anonymous shared his image of grossly swollen testicles subsequent to a vasectomy. Normally one would stay a few days in bed, but our man was booked for a flight to Europe the next day.

Which reminded Julian of the time the lymph nodes in his neck got so swollen, 10x6cm, that apparently much bigger and it would have burst outwards.

Carl began to sit, and I asked him if he had any stories to beat that of testicular worms, at which point he suddenly remembered he had to be somewhere else. I too would have stayed for longer, but we had to be at Monks Cowl campsite by 6. Strapping the rooftop tent closed hastily on Skyla, Bean and I roared out along sinewy potholed roads to our camping spot at Monks Cowl campsite, arriving just three minutes late. The kind gatesman eventually arrived and let us in anyway. We found a beautiful knoll adjacent to a forest to setup camp and stayed there for the night to ponder my own upcoming vasectomy.Read more