I want to give a character of mine a wound infection on his leg. Something severe enough to raise the stakes, but not lethal. Something that would be interesting to write about. The setting is very much pre-modern in terms of medicine.
I want to give a character of mine a wound infection on his leg. Something severe enough to raise the stakes, but not lethal. Something that would be interesting to write about. The setting is very much pre-modern in terms of medicine.
Lots of worms can live in a non-life-threatening wound for long periods of time. Some can’t reproduce in a wound because they require a gastrointestinal tract.
So it could be a single, small worm that prevents the wound from healing, is only painful enough to be inconvenient, and can’t easily be removed without cutting off a large chunk of flesh.
Yeah. Worms are what I wanted to write as well…the Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinensis),sometimes also called medina worm, is one of these and was once really common. The Asclepius rod is possibly coming from it.
If your character has a backstory that brings him to southern Europe, Asia or Africa in these times it’s basically perfect.
Another disease to look up: Larva migrans cutanea
Yeah, was thinking to make up a giant-ringworm.
Rings of 5-10cm across.
Ringworm is, in fact, a fungus. Not an actual worm.
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