CRAPSULE
It's possible that the microbiome, that collection of bacteria that live in our bodies (mostly the gut), may have as much influence on our health as our genetic makeup. After all, there are more than 150 times as many genes in those organisms as there are in our own genome. An imbalance in the microbiome, known as disbiosis, has been linked to many conditions, ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to autism, to patients' responses to certain cancer treatments.
The first successful treatment relating to the microbiome was the use of faecal microbial transplants to treat C. difficile (brought on by overuse of antibiotics). FMT, as it is known, is
exactly what it sounds like. And when you encapsulate those FMTs, they're called crapsules. And there's your word of the day. Read
The Economist for more information.
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2 comments:
One reader of the post about crapsules privately emailed me after telling her farm-bred husband about the term:
It reminded him of his days on the farm with purebred Shorthorns. When a cow was diagnosed with a non-functioning stomach they would feed it the rumen of a recently deceased cow. Although this was too early in the digestive tract to be considered fecal it nonetheless smelt even worse. He remembers driving to the local abattoir to pick up a fresh pail of rumen, and then his job was to pour it into a coke bottle to stick down the throat of the sick cow. Yuk! Phew! Stinky!!
Further to the previous comment, the farm-boy's brother, now a vet, went on with this information:
The rumen juice is unique to four-stomached animals in that it contains protozoa by the thousands which help digest the very coarse material which the bovines eat. Another sporting way to transplant it is to approach a living bovine which is chewing its cud. This happens for 30 minutes or more when the cow is resting after eating. Every couple of minutes she belches up a bolus of "cud"(recently ingested course material). She will chew this for 60-90 chews and then swallow it. A few seconds later another cud comes up.....
If you approach them quietly you can grab that cud out of her mouth . a few of these is all that's needed for a sick cow.
This is a dangerous sport during which your hand can easily get crushed by her molar teeth. The secret is to grab her tongue first and pull it sideways between her teeth so she can't bite, then use your other hand to grab the bolus of cud ! Needless to say the cow should by tied securely, preferably in a stanchion. She needs to feel comfortable in her surroundings or she will stop chewing her cud ! Understand why I consider it a "sport" ? !
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