On Friday, June 20, 2003, at 07:04  AM, William Schnell wrote:
>  Then
> there's the Japanese who deliberately cultivated a tapeworm (yes, in
> his
> gut), says he felt better.

I have read that in the 19th century taking a tapeworm was pretty
common for people traveling to unhealthy foreign places, they claimed
the tapeworm kept all the other bugs under control. Then when they got
home they took a drug to kill the tapeworm. Women also took them for
slimming!