ROUNDWORM ASCARIS LUMBRICOIDES—SCHWARTZ 467 
Ascaris has been found, sometimes in abundance, in human inhabit- 
ants of cold climates, such as those that prevail in Finland, Greenland, 
Scandinavia, and other northern countries. However, a warm, moist 
climate is ideal for the persistence of its eggs, and affords, moreover, 
optimum conditions for their development. It has long been known 
that the Tropics afford a haven to these worms. The habits of the 
people there and their substandard hygienic practices, coupled with a 
level of sanitation that is incompatible with healthful living, almost 
preclude a complete escape from the invasion of these parasites. A 
century or so ago medical observers were struck by the almost univer- 
sal occurrence of Ascaris in Negroes living in the American Tropics, 
especially in French Guiana. There the population—adults as well 
as children—was practically never free from Ascaris. Literally, sev- 
eral hundred worms were observed to have been voided by children 
in the course of a few days. In autopsies, large numbers of Ascaris 
were found in the intestines, regardless of the disease to which the 
subjects had succumbed. So huge were the masses of worms seen 
during autopsies that they were referred to as “hatfuls of worms.” 
That huge accumulations of these helminths did not altogether dis- 
appear in more recent years is evident, for example, from the fact 
that in 1950 there was reported, in an article published in the Trans- 
actions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (28), 
the recovery of more than 2 kilograms of adult ascarids from the in- 
testine of an Arab boy in Iraq, who died from an intestinal occlusion 
caused by an entangled mass of these worms. Reports of massive in- 
fections with these parasites are still seen currently in medical journals 
that emanate from the American and other Tropics, as are also reports 
of rather unusual lesions caused by these worms. 
ALLEGED SPONTANEOUS GENERATION OF ASCARIS 
Before the classic experiments of Redi (19) in the 17th century, 
the spontaneous generation of metazoan organisms, such as snails, 
flies, and other insects, and especially intestinal helminths, was gen- 
erally accepted on the basis of long tradition backed up by no lesser 
authority than that of Aristotle. According to Redi, even William 
Harvey expressed the belief “that all living things derive their origin 
either from semen or eggs, whether this semen have proceeded from 
others of the same kind, or have come by chance or something else.” 
Redi’s demonstration that flies did not develop from putrescent flesh 
kept in closed containers did not altogether close the issue of spon- 
taneous generation of metazoan organisms. Old beliefs are not easily 
surrendered. ‘The spontaneous generation of intestinal worms was 
long adhered to even by Rudolphi and Bremser, outstanding helmin- 
thologists of the 18th century. Writing in 1857, Kiichenmeister (11) 
referred to the persistence of opinions on spontaneous generation, at 
