The professor who put 50 worms in his own body may have found a cure for allergies:
He wanted to test his theory by infecting asthmatics in a clinical trial. But the Ethics Committee refused to grant him permission: they weren’t confident that it was safe.So, in that famous medical tradition, Pritchard infected himself, along with volunteers from his laboratory at Nottingham University. “My wife thought I was mad” he recalled.
He stuck 50 hookworms on a plaster and attached it to his arm. It began to itch — an excruciating pain, he says, far worse than a mosquito bite.
The worms — which grow up to a centimetre in length — spent two days in his skin before migrating into his blood vessels. Pritchard experienced no more symptoms until four weeks later, when the parasites arrived in his gut and began laying eggs. The eggs were excreted, but the parasites began sucking blood from his gut wall. He developed severe diarrhoea and began to ache under his ribs. Unable to sleep, he took de-worming tablets to get the bugs out of his system.
Evidently 50 worms was too many, but 10 worms was safe. The trial has begun.