Surgeon Finds Big, Wriggly Worm in Patient’s Brain

Australian surgeons got the shock of their lives while performing a brain biopsy on a patient who had been experiencing forgetfulness, depression, and other mysterious symptoms. Dr. Hari Priya Bandi spotted a lump in the frontal lobe, plucked it out with forceps, and was astonished to find it was a 3-inch worm. “I just thought: ‘What is that? It doesn’t make any sense. But it’s alive and moving,’” Bandi said. “It continued to move with vigor. We all felt a bit sick.” The worm was the larva of an Australian native roundworm commonly found in carpet pythons—but not humans.