You’ve probably never thought about the fact that for 99.99% of human history, your body was a hotel for uninvited guests. The thought of eating raw pork makes you recoil? That’s not biology speaking. That’s a 150-year-old luxury called modern sanitation.
Let’s go back to 206 BC. Fan Kuai, a general under Liu Bang, storms into the Hongmen Banquet, grabs a raw pork shoulder off a shield, and eats it with his bare hands. Every modern reader gasps: Did he get parasites? Was he insane? The shock you feel at the thought of eating raw pork is a luxury that only a 150-year-old anomaly could afford. For virtually all of human history, everyone had parasites. Everyone. The question isn’t whether Fan Kuai got infected. It’s whether he even noticed.
First, the raw pork thing: it’s probably a mistranslation, or at worst, freshly killed meat with no surface contamination. But even if he ate a fully loaded piece of pork tapeworm, he wouldn’t have felt a thing for months. Tapeworms don’t kill you. They’re quiet tenants. They live in your gut, stealing a few nutrients, and you might never know. Fan Kuai lived 17 more years, dying in 189 BC. That proves nothing. We are not clean by default. We are clean by industrial accident.
Archaeology proves it. In 1972, the Mawangdui tombs in China revealed Lady Xin Zhui, a noblewoman buried in 168 BC. Autopsy found whipworm, pinworm, and schistosome eggs in her liver and rectum. She was a countess. She ate the best food. She still hosted a full ecosystem. Three years later, another Western Han tomb unearthed a male corpse with Japanese schistosomiasis. These were aristocrats. If they had worms, everyone did. Parasites are not invaders. They are evicted tenants.
We got our tapeworms from pigs? No. Molecular evidence shows humans had tapeworms before we domesticated anything. The tapeworm started in us, then spread to our livestock. That raw pork shoulder? The parasite on it was originally a family heirloom from our ancestors.
Agriculture made it worse. Settling down meant living next to your own waste. The Roman Empire had toilets, sewers, and aqueducts. You’d think they’d be clean. A Cambridge study examined Roman latrines and found that parasite eggs actually increased. Why? Because they used human feces as fertilizer. Their advanced logistics also spread fish tapeworm across the empire via a raw fish sauce called garum. Civilization’s greatest inventions were also parasite highways.
Even monks in medieval England had higher worm infection rates than the local peasants. They composted their own waste in their gardens. The difference between clean and dirty wasn’t plumbing. It was whether you ate your own poo.
Now for the twist. For millions of years, our immune system evolved in the presence of worms. Worms actively suppress inflammation to avoid being kicked out. When we suddenly eliminated them in the 20th century, our immune system lost its natural brake. The result? Allergies, asthma, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis. They’re all shooting up in the sanitized world. The diseases of modernity are the withdrawal symptoms of losing our oldest symbiotic partners.
This led to the hygiene hypothesis, but also to something that sounds insane: clinical trials where people swallow pig whipworm eggs to treat Crohn’s. The early results were promising. The larger trials? Mostly disappointing. But the idea is still alive. We’re so uncomfortable with the thought of parasites that we forget they were our co-evolutionary companions. We are not pure. We are a walking ecosystem that forgot its tenants.
In 2025, Guinea worm disease reported just 10 cases worldwide. That’s a triumph. But it’s also a reminder that we are living in an unprecedented, sterile bubble. The world still has 1.5 billion people infected with soil-transmitted helminths. One in four people have a worm inside them right now. Including you, probably. But you don’t know. And that’s the point.
Fan Kuai didn’t care about parasites. They didn’t care about him. They lived together. He died at 60, outliving his emperor. The real question is not whether he got sick from raw pork. The real question is: Can you imagine a life where your body is not a fortress, but a garden? The cleanest humans in history are the sickest in evolutionary terms. We are not healthier. We are just different.
So next time you read about someone eating raw meat in an ancient text, don’t ask why they didn’t get sick. Ask why you assume you’re clean. The answer is: you’re not. You’re just lucky that the parasites you host are mostly invisible. But they’re still there. And they always have been.
FAQ
Q: Did Fan Kuai actually get sick from eating raw pork?
A: No, not immediately. Even if he ingested tapeworm larvae, they take months to mature. Historical records show he lived 17 more years. But the real point is that he almost certainly already had parasites anyway—everyone did back then.
Q: So should I stop worrying about food safety and start eating raw meat?
A: Absolutely not. Modern industrial meat production creates risks that didn't exist in ancient times—like Salmonella, E. coli, and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The article isn't advocating raw diets; it's about understanding that our immune system evolved alongside parasites, and their sudden absence may have health consequences we're only beginning to understand.
Q: Is the hygiene hypothesis proven? Should I try to infect myself with worms?
A: The hygiene hypothesis has strong observational support but mixed clinical trial results. Do not attempt self-infection with any parasite. The risks (including malnutrition, organ damage, and unpredictable immune responses) far outweigh any potential benefit. Stick to established treatments for allergies and autoimmune diseases.