[Nhcoll-l] EXT : The Dangerous Museum

[Doug Yanega]

On 12/14/13 10:45 AM, Bryant, James wrote:
>
> Back in 1980, I attended a Washington Entomological Society lecture at 
> SI-NMNH entitled "Insects of Medical Importance". The presentation's 
> content intentionally excluded all vector species as well as species 
> with bites or stings. One of the more remarkable stories involved a 
> curator at the institution who developed symptoms of a bad sinus 
> infection. After some suffering, he sneezed one day and found an adult 
> insect in his handkerchief. It was a species that he had apparently 
> inhaled during a less cautious moment using an aspirator in the field. 
> Needless to say, the adult insect went into the collection...and was 
> on view at the lecture.
>
>
This particular case is rather infamous; Paul D. Hurd, Jr., while in the 
frigid North, was aspirating collembolans, and some of their eggs made 
it past he filter of his aspirator. They hatched and grew into a 
significant population, eventually leading to a severe sinus problem. 
His doctor wrote this up and published it, and this brief note is today 
the basis for tens of thousands of people who claim that it is medical 
proof that collembolans are parasitic; there are now companies who 
manufacture and sell medication to eliminate collembolan infections, to 
cater to all of these people who believe they have collembolans 
burrowing in their flesh.

Oh, well...

-- 
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

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