Dracunculus medinensis. CDC – Public Health Image Library #1342
A long time ago in Kentucky, I used to hear tales about a tapeworm—as it was called-that slithered into a girl’s mouth when she was drinking from a stream and took up residence in her intestines. After that, every time she ate or drank, it looked hungrily out of her mouth. I always loved the mental image that conjured.
Yesterday morning I learned on NPR that the tapeworm was probably a Fireworm, which once raged so widely, a parasite all over the world, that the reporter speculated that the medical symbol is actually not a snake but this noxious worm, coiled around a stick. Treatment in the early days required making a hole in the sufferer’s leg, inserting a stick and winding the worm out, inch by inch, a cure almost worse than the affliction.
Sometimes it seems to me that we are all suffering from another form of Fireworm called War, or “Imperial Infantilism,” as one commentator called it. He referred to the Minsk 11 Agreement, approved by the UN Security Council and signed by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France, ending the war between Ukraine and the People’s Republic of Donbas. However, the agreement was never enforced leading to ongoing struggles. Now, the US “Build Back Better” program is stalled as fifteen billion dollars go, instead, to sending arms to Ukraine. It seems unlikely that an increase in their weaponry will ever lead to a cease-fire and some kind of resolution; our participation in this effort has to be viewed in light of our participation, in 2002, in a coup that ousted Ukraine’s democratically elected governor.
Back to the Fireworm. According to yesterday’s report, hundreds of thousands of cases of its infestation were reported over the years, all over the world. The most recent number of sufferers is twenty-seven. Along with seat belts, diminished use of tobacco, and the conquering of most childhood diseases, once fatal, through vaccination, these examples give me hope. Maybe we can learn from experience. Maybe the defeated Fireworm is our leader.
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