Medicine: Out of the Ditches

Out of a T.W.A. plane at La Guardia Field last week stepped a bald, strong-jawed man carrying two tiny wooden boxes. Inside the boxes, carefully packed between a layer of mud and some wet weeds, were 200 tiny (ΒΌ-in. diameter) snails (Bullinus truncatus). The snails were heavily infested with larvae of the fluke Schistosoma haematobium, which burrows under the skin and travels through the bloodstream to nest in and around the bladder. The infestation causes Bilharziasis (a form of schistosomiasis), resulting in passage of blood in the urine. Half of Egypt's 19,000,000 people...

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