Please take GOOD care of your eyes!

Quarter

Tell me about it.
Bizarre as it may seem, the preceding photos are authentic, though the same cannot be said of the accompanying narrative, which is a fabrication.

We don't know who assembled the emailed collage, but after a painstaking search we did find the source of the individual images, an article entitled "Anterior Orbital Myiasis Caused by Human Botfly," published in the July 2000 number of the Archives of Ophthalmology, a journal of the American Medical Association.

"Myiasis" is the medical term for a maggot (fly larva) infestation of a living body. In this case, the patient was a 5-year-old boy treated by U.S. Air Force surgeons in a rural area of the Republic of Honduras. "The respiratory pore of a late-stage larva of the human botfly (Dermatobia hominis) was located in the anterior orbit," says the article abstract. "The larva was gently removed under general anesthesia through a small incision in the conjunctiva." The patient was apparently none the worse for wear.

It would appear the text of this article was not consulted when the email tale was composed. Neither "bad dust" nor excessive eye rubbing were cited as causes of the infestation in the 5-year-old patient. According to entomologists, the human botfly lays its eggs on the bodies of other insects (such as mosquitoes), which then transfer the eggs to animal or human hosts by direct contact. When a botfly egg hatches, the larva burrows into the host's skin head-first and begins feeding.

This nasty creature is found mainly in Central and South America, but there are other species of flies known to responsible for cases of myiasis in North America, mainly blowflies. According to an epidemiological study conducted in 2000, most instances of myiasis acquired in the United States are the result of blowflies laying their eggs in pre-existing wounds.

None of which is quite as terrifying as the claim that any one of us could end up with a worm in our eye simply by being exposed to too much dust, which helps explain why the true facts of the case aren't circulating with the photos. In folklore, the story's the thing — accuracy takes a back seat to emotional impact, or, as Jan Harold Brunvand succinctly puts it, "The truth never stands in the way of a good story."



soompi.
 

Liberty

sarNie Adult
Ahh!! and Ewww!!!

I'm going to have nightmares to night. I already have a phobia of worms and generally things that squish...now this. *shivers*
 

darvil

sarNie Adult
You know some asians are going to find a way to eat that larva.. probably with fish sauce.
 

kitkat

sarNie Elites
OMFG! it's freaky disgusting and now i think i wouldn't forget it for a couple of days--- damn you. *shivers*
 

*Ice*

sarNie Adult
haha u kno what i just saw a woman at ma work placement she had tape worm and one worm in her head this reminds me so bad of it
 

noungning

Heartless
omg i saw this on a forward email to me year and years ago... this one and this other email where something stung her breast and laid eggs in her breast so she developed this thing like a bee hive on her breast and the eggs came out... eek that was wicked scary lol
 

Quarter

Tell me about it.
^omg i saw that breast one about two years ago! that one is MORE disgusting!! you know how much i freaked trying to rub it off me(even though it's not there, it felt like it was there)! i shake and hop around the whole house screaming "EW EW OMG EW EW OMG!" *shivers* thinking about it now, it STILL feels like its there! AHH

but i think that one is photoshop. i saw it on this one site, the dude explain the WHOLE story of how his wife(or whoever, forgot), got it from visiting Africa. then at the end, he says he photo shopped it. looks so real though O_O
 

noungning

Heartless
^omg i saw that breast one about two years ago! that one is MORE disgusting!! you know how much i freaked trying to rub it off me(even though it's not there, it felt like it was there)! i shake and hop around the whole house screaming "EW EW OMG EW EW OMG!" *shivers* thinking about it now, it STILL feels like its there! AHH

but i think that one is photoshop. i saw it on this one site, the dude explain the WHOLE story of how his wife(or whoever, forgot), got it from visiting Africa. then at the end, he says he photo shopped it. looks so real though O_O
lol yeah it might've been photoshopped to think about it again. haha but it was sure much more freaky than this one.
 

noungning

Heartless
no those emails were from like when i was still in grade school gee hahah

well a few years ago... ;)
 

Quarter

Tell me about it.
^ no. you need to see the picture ning and i are talking about. you would faint! i seriously feel like it's on me right now *takes chill pill*
 
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