it had slowed the growth of mccarthy 's beard , it seemed , and caused a few of his teeth to fall out ; it had also caused mccarthy to pass gas that probably could n't have gone ignored even in the politest of polite society - farts like poison gas , to be perfectly blunt about it - but the thing itself had apparently been fine ... lively ... growing ... jonesy had a sudden vivid image of a wriggling white tapeworm emerging from a pile of raw meat .