Frog-legged Children
cctv.com 11-08-2005 15:36
In Lianzhou, Guangdong, bordering Hunan, there are some of the poorest people in Guangdong. In Huangtai Village, there are a number of special children, who are just as bright as other children but walk with a stagger. Some children will squat with their knees separated apart like a frog. The youngest of them is 5, and the oldest is 18. They are often called frog-legged children. In Huangtai Village, nearly every family has one or more frog-legged children.
Their parents don鈥檛 know when their illness began. They only know their children faltered when they were very young. The faltering increased with age. Nobody knows the reason. But what caused them to be frog-legged and deprive them of a normal childhood?
Some said they were poisoned by a frog toxin. Frogs are seen throughout South China in areas like Guangdong where ponds and pools are abundant. Frog meat is tender and delicious, and is a delicacy. In recent years, several cases of diseases caused by parasites in frog meat have been reported in many places. Is it possible that these children got their disease from frog meat?
But the villagers soon excluded such a possibility, because the habit of eating frog meat has a long history, while frog-legged children appeared only in the 1980鈥檚. The disease is absent among older villagers.
The villagers suspected that there might be problems with the water source. The Huangtai Village is in the mountainous areas of north Guangdong and uses spring water in the mountains. The water began to be turbid due to long time use of the springs. The villagers found a new spring with cleaner water.
But the results were not as expected. The number of frog-legged children didn鈥檛 decrease but increased. What鈥檚 puzzling is that although everyone in the village drinks the same water, some children have normal legs. Why?
