Chinese man who ate five live frogs ‘for strength’ hospitalised with parasitic infection
- He had hoped the folk remedy could help him get stronger after he broke two bones in years past
- Other people in China have got sick after eating frogs hoping to get stronger
A man in eastern China developed a parasitic infection after swallowing five live frogs because he believed they would make him stronger, a local hospital said.
The farmer routinely worked the fields in the Yuhang district of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province. Sun told doctors earlier this month that he caught the frogs near the farmland and swallowed them whole.
Sun said he decided to try out the folk remedy because he wanted to improve his fitness after suffering breaking his collar bone and a shoulder blade several years ago.
“I caught five frogs in total and they were all quite small, about a thumb’s length each,” he was quoted as saying.
He had to go to three hospitals to find the cause of his mysterious illness. He did not realise the frogs might be the cause, so he did not tell the doctors about them until the final stop made a detailed inquiry.
By then, he had had a fever for about two weeks, and his lungs had shown multiple lesions and fibrosis, doctors said.