Defense Against Vampire Leeches
I haven’t gone away—it’s just that I’m rather busy with NaNo at the moment. But yesterday in the pub I met a mate (it was great to see him again!) who’ll be off to SE Asia in January and we had a good time talking travel.
So I dreamt about my iminent trip. This time, I wasn’t actually lost in the jungle, shaking with fever and set upon by giant vampire moths. I was lost in Bangkok, trying to change money that I didn’t have in my account in a bank that had gone bankrupt and walking around in circles at the same time.
I have this thing about getting stuck in big cities.
When I woke up I remembered what I had read about Malaysia’s pristine Taman Negara rainforest reserve and resolved to hotfoot it there almost as soon as the plane touches down. And then, as expected, my thoughts turned to bugs. You see, it’s the rainy season and the leeches, as LP put it, ‘will be out in force’.
Funnily enough, I’ve never been bitten by a leech, but I have seen close-ups of their jaws in my Zoology lectures (think triangularly arranged chain saws) and it has but the fear of the devil in me. As if that wasn’t enough, a friend in Sri Lanka has shown me the massive red splotches on his legs where leeches had attached during a little stroll in the Sinha Raja rainforest reserve a few weeks previously. Turns out he’s allergic to the critters. They’re mostly harmless, really.
As I mulled this over, I remembered a horror story which I will sell to ‘Cemetery Dance’ if I ever get the re-write finished. It was about leeches that had mutated because of pollution and turned into nasties that crept into people’s ears and nostrils, devouring them from the inside (and breeding in the process). Since I like sciene fiction, I could not resist putting a slight scifi slant on it. And this may now have practical applications.
The background for the story concerns the Ig Nobel Prize, a spoof award for research which could not, or should not, be replicated and which has achieved cult status among scientists. At first it was awarded for unintentionally humourous findings, but lately projects are often designed specifically to bag the prize. In 1996, it went to a study on the feeding preferences of medicinal leeches.The main finding was that the leeches placed on people who had applied garlic to their skin all died. Garlic is highly toxic to them. It seems to attract them, but they do not actually bite. Think leech trap. Think leech-icide.
So, this may just work. Mix crushed garlic (or garlic juice) with petroleum jelly and apply liberally to skin, socks and boots. Treat a control group with plain petroleum jelly and leave further unfortunates untreated. Trek in the jungle. Compare leech bites. Take pictures.
I won’t be out there for some time yet to run my own trials, but I have a hunch that this could be the solution to the leech problem, thanks to Drs. Barheim and Sandvik.
God, I miss being a scientist 😉
This entry is licenced under a Creative Commons Developing Nations licence.
Denni