Most people would panic and seek immediate medical help if they found an insect living in their body.
But not one German Ph.D. student, who was so fascinated by the flea inhabiting her foot that she left it there for two months.
Marlene Thielecke, a student at Berlin’s Charité University Medicine, decided to study the creature after she discovered it in her foot.
While it was there, she took regular photos and videos of it, the website Geeko System reports.
Ms Thielecke’s job at the university involves carrying out research into ways to prevent tungiasis – a skin disease caused by infection with a female flea – in Madagascar.
These sand fleas burrow into the skin of their host where they live and breed.
They cause the human host to suffer pain and itching and the site of the infestation often becomes infected.
The only cure is to dig the fleas out of the skin.
Ms Thielecke says that after two months she became ‘uneasy’ about the experiment as her foot was itchy and painful and she was struggling to walk.
As a result, she decided the time had come to remove the flea.
Despite the termination of her experiment, she made an interesting discovery – she found that the fleas most likely mate while inside their human hosts as she only had one flea living inside her foot and it neither laid eggs nor died.
As a result, she believes it lived in a ‘waiting state’ in anticipation of finding a mate.
Ms Thielecke is not the first researcher to have compromised her health for the sake of science.
Last month it was reported that an American biologist had lived with a parasitic worm in his mouth for three months.
Dr Jonathan Allen, 36, played host to a Gongylonema pulchruma parasite which moved around the fleshy part of his cheeks and lips.
Dr Allen consulted a dentist and a surgeon about the issue but neither removed the parasite so he decided to deal with the problem himself.
He used small forceps to remove the worm from his cheek with the help of his wife.
He now keeps it in a jar and studies it.
(dailymail.co.uk)
ANN.Az
