The heated debate about this disease has not subsided to this day. A terrible legend about a worm penetrating the human body during bathing and living in it for a long time, eating it from the inside, is retold from mouth to mouth. Folk rumor gave this parasite the name "horse hair" for its outward similarity to natural hair. And, they say, there is no escape from this scourge, no medicine will help here and only a conspiracy plot read over a sick person can make a parasite leave the body. So all the same, what is “horse hair” really - truth or fiction?
Horse hair, or “live hair,” is a worm parasite that, according to superstitions, crawls under the skin of a person while swimming in the river. Having settled in the body, the “hair” is constantly moving, which causes terrible torment - pain, intolerable itching, purulent blisters appear on the body. Sometimes the worm itself can even be seen from the wounds, however, it is almost impossible to extract it - it immediately goes deep into the tissues. However, doctors and scientists do not recognize the existence of such a disease, "horse hair", and call it nothing more than fiction. Often, such a symptomatology, which is attributed to “live hair,” is actually some kind of common infection, which is “easy to catch” when bathing in natural reservoirs, usually teeming with various bacteria. Through a small puncture in the leg, it enters the tissues from the water, in which suppuration begins, accompanied by pain and itching. However, instead of seeking qualified medical help, many people begin to actively “banish” horse hair, believing that it was he who made the “hole” in his leg and now settled there. And today, science has not yet discovered any parasite that lives freely in water and knows how to “attack” swimming people.
But the legendary horsehair does have a living prototype. Most often, such a terrible ability - to settle in a person and crawl inside his body, is attributed to the invertebrate worm that lives in the open waters of Russia - hairy (Nematomorpha). Adult individuals reach a length of up to 40 cm with a thickness of 3-5 mm, color - from white to dark brown. For this appearance, he got his name, before they even believed that this is real hair, revived in water. This worm is indeed a parasite, but its “hosts” are most often insects. Before becoming an adult, the worm larva changes its habitat twice — first it is introduced into the body of one of the bottom inhabitants, most often it is bloodworms, larvae of mayflies, etc., then the host changes after the bloodworm infected by the parasite eats more large insect. But his fate is a foregone conclusion - in his body the larva will stay for about a month, having developed into an adult during this time, and leave it, gnawing its way out straight through his body. Further, the worm lives in water, actively moving in it. Hairy people do not live long - no more than 4 weeks. During this time, they mate and lay eggs, after which their life cycle will be completed. Adult worms do not feed - they completely lack the digestive system. So to think that they can gnaw a hole in a person’s skin is nothing more than a myth.
Volatics can be found in summer in all natural bodies of water with stagnant water. They can be seen floating in the water column, or they can be found at the bottom. Sometimes fishermen get them out of the water along with the catch. But in fact, all the hairs that we can see in rivers and lakes are already mature individuals, and they do not need any “master”. A parasite can enter the body only through the digestive system - that is, for this you need to swallow an insect infected with it. Occasionally, snails, fish, and even mammals (including humans) become the owner of the hairy, swallowing the carrier of the worm’s larvae, however, these cases are very rare, and since the person is not the true “owner” of the worm, he simply lives in his body for a long time will not be able and does not cause terrible torment described in horror stories.
However, in the world there is still a parasite that really looks very much like the legendary horsehair. The disease is dracunculiasis, the causative agent of which is the worm-parasite worm, like no other fits the description of “live hair”, but this parasite does not wait for its victim to attack it and gnaw its way through its skin. Parasite infection occurs through the use of untreated water. The disease is asymptomatic until the parasite reaches maturity and begins to lay eggs. To do this, he migrates through the human body to the lower extremities and bores the skin to go out, causing considerable pain to his master. The only thing to consider is that this parasite lives exclusively in a very warm tropical climate and poses no threat to the inhabitants of Russia.
There is another type of parasite that can cause symptoms similar to horse hair disease. This is a parasite of dirofilaria, infection of which is not peculiar to humans, but, nevertheless, rarely happens. Dirofilariasis is a disease that affects mainly mammals of the canine family, less often - feline. Its mosquitoes are ordinary mosquitoes, with the bite of which infection occurs. Once in the bloodstream of the host, dirofilaria migrates throughout the body, gradually reaching large vessels and the heart. Adults constantly live in the right ventricle of the heart, interfering with blood flow, causing symptoms of heart failure and, sometimes, even clogging adjacent vessels. The treatment of this disease is quite difficult, and the only effective measure is prevention - the use of repellents to avoid mosquito bites.
A hundred years ago, the disease was rare in Russia, but now it occurs even in cold areas. A person is infected with it extremely rarely, however, in the event that this happens, the very same symptoms of “horse hair” arise. With a blood stream, the parasite can bring to anywhere in the human body and sometimes its movement through the tissues begins to be very worried when there is pain, itching or a sensation of the presence of a foreign body. In some cases described in medicine, the parasite was removed from the tissues of the eye, in others from the skin. They enter both the muscle tissue and the internal organs, however, since the person is not the real “master” of dirofilaria, then this ends their life cycle, and the body of the parasite is encapsulated. The medicine for this misfortune has long been known to medicine, and the disease itself has been well studied, which leads it to the category of “mythical” ones.