Hook-Worm Disease
(Ancylostomiasis)

A kind of parasite exists in the human intestines, called Hook-Worm. It is half an inch long and slender as the human hair and is provided with a pair of hook-like teeth at one end. The eggs of these parasites are passed out with human faeces and deposited on moist soil where high temperature and wind help to develop the embryo. The eggs are hatched in four to eight days, giving rise to larvae. These larvae are swallowed by man with food or drink. The chief means whereby they get into our body are— (a) with food grown on those soils, or (b) water passing through those soils, or (c) when men with long nails during earthwork (like coolies, miners, brick layers, agriculturists, etc.) get the eggs in the earth lodged under their nails, or (d) when people walk bare-foot, the larvae can get themselves hooked into the sole of the foot as soon as trodden on.

By whichever means they enter the human body, they ultimately reside in the human intestine (jejunum), hook themselves from the mucous surface. They gradually eat up the mucous surface from which oozing of blood takes place. This double loss (loss of the digestive mucous surface and the loss of blood) lead to emaciation, indigestion, wasting, Anemia, puffiness of face and ankles, exhaustion, and ultimately death.

Treatment

Preventive: (1) Insist on coolies and other people defecating into well-appointed latrines, never in the fields. Bum all dejecta after collection. (2) Insist on all coolies, agriculturists, miners, etc., washing their hands very thoroughly before eating or drinking and always wearing shoes.

Curative: Give the patient according to his age and body-weight, from 7 to 10 grains of Thymol in the morning on empty stomach; after an hour or two a dose of Castor oil or Mag. Sulph. Continue it for few weeks; once a week or once a fortnight is quite enough. Filix, Mas, Chenopodium oil may also be used instead. For the Anemia, give China, Ferrum, Acid phos., Stannum, Spigelia, Teucrium.