There is almost a sweetness to the title of this study, almost:
“Epidemiology of Reindeer Parasites,” Odd Halvorsen, Parasitology Today, vol. 2, no. 12, 1986, pp. 334-339. (Thanks to Sip Siperstein for bringing this to our attention.)
The author says: “Every Christmas we sing about Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer, but do we give much thought to why his nose is red? The general consensus is that Rudolf has caught a cold, but as far as I know no proper diagnosis has been made of his abnormal condition. I think that, rather than having a cold, Rudolf is suffering from a parasitic infection of his respiratory system. To some this may seem a bit far-fetched as one would not expect an animal living with Santa Claus at the North Pole to be plagued by parasites, but I shall show otherwise.”
And a sweetness to author Halvorsen’s first name. And to the fact that the paper cites four papers by Sir Robert May, who tried to ban the Ig Nobel Prizes when he was chief scientific advisor to the British government , and cites two papers by Eigil Reimers, who won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2014 for testing how reindeer react to seeing humans who are disguised as polar bears.
And the Song…
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer rose to heights of fame, as you may well know, because of a song.
Oddly, a different Robert May reportedly created the character of Rudolph. A 2014 Time magazine report says:
“In 1939, a staff copywriter named Robert L. May was assigned to create a character for a line of holiday-themed coloring books the company wanted to peddle to kids. May came up with a story about a plucky reindeer who saves Christmas. After rejecting several names (like Rollo), he decided to call his creation Rudolph. The coloring book was a huge success, Montgomery Ward sold millions of copies.”