Monday, January 09, 2017

A man may search for a shilling and find a sovereign. The important thing is to search

--- Parasitologist Patrick Manson, quoted in EPOD's "Accidental Discoveries: Unusual Salt Crystal Whiskers," January 09, 2017

It's also quoted in Tales from the Torrid Zone: Travels in the Deep Tropics by Alexander Frater

Weeks later, after his wife complained about the smell, he saw the eggs had grown into creatures he reckoned to be embryonic lung flukes that had originated in snails. Snails? How did he know? In truth he didn't; snails had been an inspired guess yet, later, he would be proved right on both counts—and find himself the first person in history studying the lung fluke' s life cycle. An organism lurking in bad water and uncooked food, it becomes a worm in the gut, reaches the lungs after penetrating the intestinal wall, in a few cases continues upwards to lay its eggs in the dark little cerebellic burrows of the brain. 
Manson, contemplating another big breakthrough, denied luck had anything to do with it. "A man may search for a shilling," he said, "and find a sovereign. The important thing is to search." 
Of the forty diseases that flourish between the ecliptics Manson studied no fewer than a quarter and created a more profound understanding of them all. Giant statues should be raised to him throughout the region.