Preksha Dhyana Human Body Part 2

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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Fungus Diseases
Familiar bread-mold and pencillin are fungi. Air, soil and water teem not only with microbes, but with micorscopic spores of fungi and the effects of fungi on our lives are far greater than is realized. Fungus diseases of human beings range from common skin-infection such as ringworm to severe systemic mycosis. Fungi normally feeding on decomposing matter in the soil may wreak havoc on the human beings, if they are accidentally introduced by inhalation or through a wound. On the credit side are the yeasts and numerous antibiotic producing fungi.
Other Parasitic Diseases
Millions of people are infested with tapeworms feeding inside one's intestinal tract and other parasites. Parasites that afflict human beings are: amoebae, responsible for amoebic dysentery, plasmodia that produce malaria, protozoa such as trypanosomes of sleeping sickness, and various flat worms and round worms.
A well-adapted parasite does not kill its host or even sicken very severely. Trouble arises when it is transmitted to a new host. For example, trypanosome infestation, that causes sleeping sickness, is endemic among the native tropical African animals. But for them it is only a minor inconvenience. When, however, the trypanosomes carried by tsetse flies enter the human beings and their livestock, they run wild. Multiplying explosively in their blood streams, they destroy blood cells. Then they move on to the nervous system, destroying tissues of the brain and spinal cord, producing lethargy and often death. The malaria-parasite is transmitted to human beings (and other animals) by the bite of an infested mosquito which has drawn blood from an infested person. Malaria is the most prevalent disease in the world.
Filariasis (Elephantiasis)
One of the most bizarre diseases, transmitted by a mosquito-bite, is filariasis. Larvae of parasitic filarial worms are injected under the skin by a mosquito carrying infected
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