Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-12T20:10:34.849Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

VIII.67 - Hookworm Disease

from Part VIII - Major Human Diseases Past and Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Kenneth F. Kiple
Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University, Ohio
Get access

Summary

Ancylostomiasis, or hookworm disease, is caused by hookworm infection and is characterized by progressive anemia. In 1989, it was estimated that perhaps as many as one billion people, most of them living in tropical and subtropical regions, are afflicted to some extent with hookworm infection, although it is not known how many thus infected can be said to be victims of hookworm disease. It is difficult to define the difference between hookworm infection and hookworm disease because a host whose diet contains adequate amounts of iron may sustain a worm burden without debilitating consequences that would render a malnourished person anemic. A person exhibiting signs of the anemia associated with hookworm infestation, therefore, may be said to have hookworm disease regardless of the number of parasites present. Hookworm disease does not appear on the short list of major causes of death in developing countries, but it should be regarded as an important contributing factor in millions of deaths annually and as a source in its own right of widespread human suffering.

Two species of intestinal nematode, Ancylostoma duodenale and Necator americanus, are the parasites that cause ancylostomiasis. Although they apparently cause the same disease, there are important differences between the two species. A. duodenale is slightly larger, sickle-shaped, with hooks or teeth; N. americanus is smaller, “S” shaped, with shell-like semilunar cutting plates instead of teeth. Despite being named the “American killer,” N. americanus is less pathogenic than A. duodenale, as measured by comparative blood loss. A. duodenale has a higher reproductive rate and a shorter life-span. It is also able to infect the host in more ways than can N. americanus.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashford, Bailey K. 1900. Ankylostomiasis in Puerto Rico. New York Medical Journal 71.Google Scholar
Ashford, Bailey K. 1934. A soldier of science. New York.Google Scholar
Boccaccio, Mary. 1972. Ground itch and dew poison: The Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, 1909–14. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 27.Google ScholarPubMed
Brown, E. Richard. 1979. Rockefeller medicine men: Medicine and capitalism in America. Berkeley.Google Scholar
Cassedy, James H. 1971. The “germ of laziness” in the South, 1909–1915: Charles Wardell Stiles and the paradox. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 45.Google Scholar
Chandler, A. C. 1929. Hookworm disease: Its distribution, biology, epidemiology, pathology, diagnosis, treatment, and control. London.Google Scholar
Dock, G., and Bass, C.. 1910. Hookworm disease. St. Louis.Google Scholar
Ettling, John. 1981. The germ of laziness: Rockefeller philanthropy and public health in the New South. Cambridge, Mass..CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fosdick, Raymond B. 1952. The story of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York.Google Scholar
Gates, Frederick T. 1977. Chapters in my life. New York.Google Scholar
Hoeppli, R. 1959. Parasites and parasitic infections in early medicine and science. Singapore.Google Scholar
Kean, B. H., Mott, K. E., and Russell, A. J.. 1978. Tropical medicine and parasitology: Classical investigations. Ithaca, N.Y.Google Scholar
Keymer, Anne, and Bundy, Don. 1989. Seventy-five years of solicitude. Nature 337.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lane, Clayton. 1932. Hookworm infection. London.Google Scholar
Link, William. 1988. Privies, progressivism, and public schools: Health reform and education in the rural south, 1909–1920. Journal of Southern History 54.Google Scholar
,Rockefeller Foundation. 1913/14–1929. Annual Report. New York.
,Rockefeller Foundation. 1922. Bibliography of hookworm disease. New York.
Savitt, Todd L., and Young, James Harvey. 1988. Disease and distinctiveness in the American South. Knoxville, Tenn.Google Scholar
Schad, G. A., and Banwell, J. G., 1989. Hookworms. In Tropical and geographical medicine, ed. Warren, K. S. and Mahmoud, A. A. F.. New York.Google Scholar
Schad, G. A., Nawalinski, T. A., and Kochar, V.. 1983. Human ecology and the distribution and abundance of hookworm populations. In Human ecology and infectious diseases, ed. Croll, N. and Cross, J.. New York.Google Scholar
Schad, G. A., and Warren, K. S.. 1990. Hookworm disease: Current status and new directions. London.Google Scholar
Stiles, C. W. 1939. Early history, in part esoteric, of the hookworm (uncinariasis) campaign in our southern states. Journal of Parasitology 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, K. S. 1989. Hookworm control. Lancet 1 (8616):.Google Scholar
Williams, Greer. 1969. The plague killers. New York.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Hookworm Disease
  • Edited by Kenneth F. Kiple, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
  • Book: The Cambridge World History of Human Disease
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521332866.129
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Hookworm Disease
  • Edited by Kenneth F. Kiple, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
  • Book: The Cambridge World History of Human Disease
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521332866.129
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Hookworm Disease
  • Edited by Kenneth F. Kiple, Bowling Green State University, Ohio
  • Book: The Cambridge World History of Human Disease
  • Online publication: 28 March 2008
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521332866.129
Available formats
×