Farm life is always hard, but young Edward Nippling had it worse than most farm kids.

Nippling grew up in southern Texas in the 1910s, and his family was too poor to afford

veterinary care.

So the worst job on the farm fell to him, picking screw worms out of open wounds on

caps.

The name screw worm is a slight misnomer.

As adults, there are actually flies.

They look like house flies, with metallic green bodies and orange heads.

But before turning into adult flies, screw worms do have a worm slash maggot face, and

it is utterly disgusting.

These maggots can infiltrate any wound on any animal, even tiny mosquito bites.

And once inside, they'll start devouring its flesh, turning tiny wounds into huge,

dripping ulcers.

So imagine little Edward Nippling, picking maggots out of these wounds by hand before

they killed the family cows.

Understandably, this produced a lifelong hatred of screw worms in him.

Now Nippling did not hate all bugs.

Far from it.

He eventually became an entomologist, and he even named his pet Siamese cats after insects.

One cat he named Athonomis after a weevil.

One cat was named Qlex after a mosquito.

But screw worms, screw screw worms, Nippling hated those vile little things.

...