Doctors suspected man had brain cancer. He actually had worms.

Sneaky worms

Taenia solium can infect people in two ways: by eating cysts in undercooked meat or ingesting eggs through fecal contamination. The parasite infects pigs, and when they ingest eggs from feces, the worms hatch in the pigs’ guts, bore through the intestines, get into the bloodstream, and migrate into a variety of tissues and muscles. There, they form into encapsulated larvae called cysticerci. If a person eats undercooked meat containing cysticerci, the larvae will develop into adult tapeworms in the person’s intestinal tract and live there, possibly for years. Meanwhile, those infected people will be shedding eggs in their feces.

If those eggs get spread around from poor hygiene and sanitation—into water, food, etc.—and make it into a person’s mouth, they do what they do in pigs. The eggs hatch, burrow into the bloodstream, and then go wandering around, embedding in various tissues, muscles, and organs, including...

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