Scientists in China now have hard evidence that eating raw centipedes is a really bad idea.

That might go without saying in most parts of the world. But centipedes are an established remedy in traditional medicine in China.

As an ancient nostrum for epilepsy, stroke, cancer, tetanus or rheumatoid arthritis, the two-inch-long arthropods are supposed to be eaten dried, powdered or after being steeped in alcohol — not raw.

But a study published on Monday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene describes two hospital patients — a mother and son — who ended up with rat lungworms in their brains after eating wild-caught centipedes the son had purchased at a farmer’s market.

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Rat lungworms — named because they were first found in 1934 in the pulmonary arteries of a Norway rat in Guangzhou, China — can be life-threatening. But usually they infect only people who eat raw snails or slugs.