Fearsome Fauna: A Field Guide to the Creatures That Live in You
-This well-written tour of the human parasitic world presents fascinating and extremely unsettling scenarios. Consider a 30-foot tapeworm setting up housekeeping in someone's intestines, an amoeba (which grows in poorly cleaned hot tubs) that can destroy the brain within a few days, or coughing up a 10-inch-long white worm. Primarily contracted by contact with human or animal sewage, parasites can live in just about any system or organ within the human body. Most people tend to feel that such scourges can't happen in civilized parts of the world with proper sanitation. This book will put that lie to rest. A cat, the air, fresh fruits and vegetables, and undercooked meats can all be a vector for squatter parasites to colonize the body. A short bibliography, a succinct list of dos and don'ts to avoid infection, and an index make this a valuable reference tool. Readers will find themselves both captivated and repelled by this treatise on our hidden companions.Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VACopyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.