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“Not a very nice subject.” Changing views of parasites and parasitology in the twentieth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2009

KEITH VICKERMAN
KEITH VICKERMAN*
Affiliation:
Division of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK
*
*Corresponding author: FBLS-DEEB, Graham Kerr Building, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)141 330 4433. Fax: +44 (0)141 330 5971. E-mail: k.vickerman@bio.gla.ac.uk
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Summary

The man in-the-street who frequently asks the question “Why am I here?” finds even more difficulty with the question “Why are parasites here?” The public's distaste for parasites (and by implication, for parasitologists!) is therefore understandable, as maybe was the feeling of early 20th century biologists that parasites were a puzzle because they did not conform to the then widely held association between evolution and progress, let alone the reason why a benevolent Creator should have created them. In mid-century, the writer, contemplating a career in parasitology was taken aback when he found that extolled contemporary biologists disdained parasites or thought little of parasitology as an intellectual subject. These attitudes reflected a lack of appreciation of the important role of parasites in generating evolutionary novelty and speciation, also unawareness of the value of parasite life-cycle studies for formulating questions of wider significance in biology, deficiencies which were gratifyingly beginning to be remedied in the latter half of the century.

Keywords

parasitespublic distastedegenerationlife cyclesevolutionary novelty
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 136 , Special Issue 12: Special Centenary Issue – Parasitology 1908–2008 , October 2009 , pp. 1395 - 1402
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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