You’re complaining of having nightmares about your teeth falling out? I dream of intestinal colonization with a 30 foot tapeworm. Everyone’s got their own hang-ups and quite frankly the largest parasite of man, the freak of nature Diphyllobothrium latum, unnerves me. What’s not to dislike? The longest lifespan of any human parasite and the jaw-dropping lengths it can reach are just a few of its charms.
An unfragmented fish tapeworm excreted after injection of amidotrizoic acid. Arrow identifies the scolex. Inset shows magnification of the proglottids. Click for source.
The fish tapeworm has long been an intestinal bedfellow of mankind. The earliest evidence of infection has been found in archaic coprolites along the Pacific coast of Chile and Peru dating from 4110 to 1950 BC (1). Tapeworm eggs have also been found at Neolithic lakeside settlements dating from 3900 BC in Germany and Switzerland and represent the earliest occurrence of the tapeworm in the Old World; diphyllobothriasis, as the infection is called, may have been one of the leading parasitic infections of Neolithic people during that period (2). It still remains a modern scourge, with an estimated 20 million people worldwide infected (3).
