You can often hear a horror story that there is a horsehair. They are usually called a disease caused by a worm that lives in water bodies and penetrates its prey while it bathes. At the same time, he begins to devour her from the inside, bringing hellish pain and suffering. The legend also says that it is possible to remove it from the body only by a witch or a fortune teller, and traditional medicine is powerless.
Doctors and scientists do not recognize the existence of such a disease. Horse hair can be mistaken for a common infection, the symptoms of which are quite similar. You can pick it up while swimming in natural reservoirs, the number of bacteria in which is large. It is enough to get a deep wound. Perhaps that is why they made a monster out of a worm, gnawing through the skin and eating a person.
The basis of the myth
The legendary horsehair has a real prototype. It is a hairy invertebrate worm. An adult can be up to 40 cm long and 5 mm wide. The color changes from white to dark brown. That is why the mythical monster is called horsehair.
The hair worm is indeed a parasite, but insects usually carry it. First, the larva gets into small representatives, for example, bloodworms. And when the latter is eaten, the worm goes along with it into the stomach of a larger insect. The hairy worm is in it for about a month, after which it gnaws its way out.
This invertebrate lives in water, its life lasts no more than 4 weeks. During this time, he mates with another representative, lays eggs and dies. The digestive system in an adult is absent, so it does not feed at all. This means that it is simply not able to gnaw through the body of other inhabitants of reservoirs, and even more so a person. Perhaps it will enter the body along with an already infected insect, but the worm will not be able to live inside.
Similar diseases
Dracunculiasis disease can be considered the real prototype of horsehair. Its causative agent is a worm - rishta. But he does not wait for his victims, but gets inside when drinking untreated water. He lays his eggs in the body and looks for a way out. Most often, he gnaws it through the lower limbs of a person. All this is accompanied by the torment of the carrier of the virus. Such a worm lives only in countries with a warm tropical climate, and in Russia, the risht will not be able to take root.
Another disease similar to horse hair is dirofilariasis. It is characteristic of canids and felines. It is carried by ordinary mosquitoes. When bitten, the causative agent of the disease, the dirofilar, enters the bloodstream. It also moves through the body until it reaches the heart or large vessels. A person rarely becomes infected with this disease, but prevention is necessary to be safe. For example, using mosquito repellent.
The disease has existed for more than one hundred years. And during this time it has been sufficiently studied by medicine. Treatment can be difficult, but more effective than going to fortune-tellers and witches.
