Darwin and the Barber Bug

 

 

Darwin, while on the Voyage of the Beagle, spent quite a bit of time ashore in Brazil , Argentina and Chile. While on these jaunts he and his fellow scientists were bitten repeatedly by an inch long blood-sucking insect known to the locals as los barbieri. In fact they probably infected the ship with these bugs because he mentions finding several aboard ship after they had left South America. The bug, Panstrongylus megistus was believed by Darwin and his associates to be loathsome but relatively harmless. Recently a number of medical scientists have conducted a theoretical post mortem on Darwin and are of the opinion that he had in his later life a chronic case of Chagas Disease which is caused by a trypanosome named Schizotrypanum cruzi which we now know the "barber bug" to be a principle host. Actually the infecting organism is transferred to humans not by the bite but in the feces of the trypanosome - usually by humans rubbing the bite and crushing the bug.

They come to this conclusion from a detailed study of Darwin's traits and the parallel nature of these to the symptoms of chronic Chagas Disease, for which we do not know a cure. As preface to the list of symptoms I will remark that I am going to burn my Parisitology text, because every time I read it I get to thinkin' I got it. In its chronic phase Chagas Disease causes inflammation of the eyes and tear glands, swelling of the eyes, frequent headaches and fever, digestive upset, extreme flatulence, listlessness and exhaustion. Well I don't have the headache or fever.

In modern times there has only been one case of Chagas Disease in the U.S. That one was reported in Maryland, and no link could be established to the home of the disease in South America.

Just to tell you about Darwin.