Of fleas, lice, ticks, protozoa and worms...

We have a practical test tomorrow, the final piece of assessment for Biomedical Parasitology and then its one course down and three more to go!

Pulex irritans - Human flea
Pediculus capitis - Human head lice
Plasmodium spp. - Malaria
Enterobius vernicularis - Human pinworm, (Female pokes its head out of your butt at night and lays its eggs...)

I remember when I was barbequing some steaks during a short holiday in Alice Spring, I was practically naming all the kinds of bacteria, worms and protozoa cysts that can possibly be found in the meat... And I still want my steak medium to medium rare. =D Well, that's the best way to bring out the flavour!

Xeonpsylla cheopis - Oriental rat flea, famous for spreading the pathogen Yersinia pestis or the black death causing plague
Pediculus humanus - Clothes lice, known to spread a few diseases, notably trench fever
Toxoplasma gondii - Quite prevalent in the human population, dangerous to catch it if one is pregnant...
Fasciola heptica - Sheep liver fluke, nasty little worm that infects humans as well

Someone once said that human beings are strange creatures of habit; what do I mean? Well, more often than not, we like to perform certain actions not because its an economy on energy or money, but simply because we are just used to doing things that way. Sometimes we just do stuff out of habit, without going through too much of our thought processes. And after many years, we just get too comfortable with these set of routine, we might just refuse (violently or not) any thoughful or useful changes made by somebody else for our own convenience.

I had refused useful changes or suggestions to my routine by thoughtful people before; and I would just like to say that most times, one should keep an open mind and perspective and not be too confined or boxed in by the "comfortable" routines/habits of our lives. Just keep one's ears open, who knows, that suggestion might actually be a great idea to save cost or time on the way we may have been doing certain things for years!

Ctenocephalides felis - Cat and dog flea that can be a vector for Dipylidium canium (dog tapeworm)
Bovicola ovis - Sheep body louse, huge production loss in wool when infected
Trypanosoma brucei - Causes sleeping sickness in human and cattle, nasty little parasite..
Dipylidium canium - Dog tapeworm, infects humans as well! Great way to lose weight! Right...

Right, now back to my notes.