🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <31A37217.188F@nandy.com>
buckstop@nandy.com writes:

> Miche wrote:
> 
> > The human disease referred to here is called kuru, and is contracted
> > by eating the brain of an infected person.
> 
>         This was the theory I was taught many years ago, and it may 
> indeed be true. It's certainly found in many current medical texts.
> 
>         However, I should point out that back in the second year of 
> medical school (BUSM), they told us that epidemiological studies
> showed that while the brains were eaten exclusively by men (it was 
> part of a funereal ritual, not a dietary supplement), most of the
> disease cases occurred in women. It was believed that the prion was
> spread through abrasions or open wounds during 'preparation' of the
> brain for eating, rather than through eating the (cooked) brain. 
> 
>         I can't recall having heard this from any other source, but
> I gotta trust my alma mater.  It certainly opens the prospect that
> prions spread by contact with non-intact skin. (Fuel for discussion?)

I stand corrected.

Miche


------------
michelle.campbell@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
What I post is my opinion only.
"If I had been around when Rubens was 
painting, I would have been revered as a
fabulous model.  Kate Moss?  She would 
have been the paintbrush."
  - Dawn French