The LEPROSY HOME PAGE

Most of us, if we gave it any thought, would have a morbid fascination with the thought that we could be eaten alive. The organisms which causes many of the tropical diseases - some of them fairly high order worms and other parasites - consider US the top of the food chain!

This site is meant not to be frivolous or callous, but to be informative, interesting, and perhaps even entertaining. These diseases have always carried with them serious and tragic personal and social implications. Many of them (with a few notable exceptions) are well on their way to being eradicated, thanks to major programs through the World Health Organization.

The photos in this section, unless otherwise noted, are archival images from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Bethesda, Maryland. Many thanks for their making them available.

Those that enter here must certify that they are not faint-at-heart!

Thousands of years of ostracism: Leprosy

Bigfoot.Elephantiasis

Your blood cells for lunch. Malaria

The fiery serpent. Dracunculiasis 

Your brain is now swiss cheese. Cysticercosis 

The sleep of the dead? African trypanosomiasis - sleeping sickness 

River blindness: Onchocerciasis 

It's not the worm in the bottle you should worry about...: Ascaris - roundworm

Eat your heart out...: American trypanosomiasis