According to Wikipedia, eating feces occurs in a wide range of circumstances: in invertebrates; in vertebrates including great apes; as ancient and modern medical treatments; as sexual fetish: in some mental illness; in pica; in developmentally abnormal children, or normal babies; in trapped miners. While some parasites can be spread this way, I can find no evidence that bacterial infections are. It seems unlikely that indirect ingestion of fecal matter can cause gastrointestinal infections when direct fecal ingestion seem not to. Is there really no evidence base for the public sanitation interventions against diarrheal diseases?
See also my RG question on Ingestion of Feces or Urine.
If you study species that are coprophagic (like chickens) then you will quickly realise how effective this is in transmission of enteric bacteria like Campylobacter or Salmonella-both experimentally or in the field. I have no reason to suspect this would not differ in humans.
"If you study species that are coprophagic (like chickens) then you will quickly realise how effective this is in transmission of enteric bacteria like ... Salmonella"
When I checked some time ago how Salmonella spread amongst chickens, I found no answers. A quick check on Google has still not found evidence (as opposed to opinions). See this extract from Salmonella on Wikipedia:
"However, infants and young children are much more susceptible to infection, easily achieved by ingesting a small number of bacteria. In infants, contamination through inhalation of bacteria-laden dust is possible."
As I recall, the best evidence for the epidemiology of Salmonella infections in the paediatric literature came from S America before WWII. These were strongly linked with respiratory infections, strongly suggesting aerial spread.
So what is the evidence that Salmonella in chickens is spread directly via coprophagia? It should be easy enough to show this, and of considerable economic relevance.
Salmonella is definitely an enteric rather than respiratory pathogen and faecal-oral transmission( directly or via contaminated foodstuffs/water) is well established in most species. It is well adapted to this transmission pathway.There are a number of studies where infected animals are placed into an experimental flock as a 'seeder' and rapid transmission occurs through coprophagia
From: Father of the Blues by W C Handy (1941):
"I remember that when I had a bad sore throat bordering on croup she made me gargle with my own urine, and when we had the measles she gave us tea made from sheep manure. But we never questioned her remedies, and we all lived"
Clearly this was common practice in the American South in the 19th century. We don't have to believe these remedies worked, other than via a strong placebo effect, but if they were harmful this would surely have been spotted. The onus must now be on those who think eating feces is harmful to produce the evidence.
*****
Addendum: From Daily Telegraph Jan 7 2014 p 25:
"Professor Elaine Petrof .. spent two years creating RePOOPulate .. a pill containing 33 purified bacteria strains from a healthy donor's faeces -- but while the pills worked, the cost of manufacturing them led her to conclude that commercialising the process would be a thankless task"
So maybe the old remedies did work after all!
"Salmonella is definitely an enteric rather than respiratory pathogen"
I am pretty sure this is not true for human infants. Can anyone find a reference to cases due to ingestion of contaminated infant foods where aerial spread was discounted?
"There are a number of studies where infected animals are placed into an experimental flock as a 'seeder' and rapid transmission occurs through coprophagia"
Again, is there a reference or review, and where aerial spread is excluded?
From A Compton J Roy Egypt Med Assoc 1948;31:12
"Some years ago I used a salmonella-coliform-giumaiform phage preparation for the treatment of an intestinal upset in a patient suffering from cancer of the liver. He insisted that it relieved the symptoms of his cancer, and in consequence it was continued for several months. This observation led me to try the same phage-preparation in the case of a medical practitioner suffering from metastases from a cancer of the breast, and the result was so unexpectedly favourable that I feel it should be placed on record. "
See here for the latest gastronomic delicacy, the poo sausage:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/food-news/9749225/Poo-sausage-Its-a-thing
From John Snow On the propagation of Cholera Med Times 1851;24:559:
"However repulsive to the feelings the swallowing of human excrement may be, it does not appear to be very injurious so long as it comes from healthy persons, but when it proceeds from cholera patients, and probably patients with some other maladies, it is a means of communicating disease"
All the evidence I have seen indicates surprisingly enough that cholera does not seem to be directly transmitted from the excrement. See my RG question on Cholera.
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