402 GENERAL SCIENCE 



A person may contract the disease known as trichinosis, 

 caused by the trichina, by eating raw pork. The micro- 

 scopic worm incloses itself within the muscles of the hog 

 and when eaten the juices in the digestive organs of man 

 release it and it finds its way out of the digestive organs 

 into the muscles, where it produces inflammation. The 

 disease is very often fatal. 



278. Hookworm. --The hookworm disease is common 

 in the poorer sections of the Southern states. The worm 

 requires a warm climate in order that it may live over the 

 winter in the soil. While young, it is microscopic in size 

 and enters the body through the soles of the feet of those 

 \ \ people who do not wear shoes during the 

 J J warmer season. It finds its way into the 

 / / blood vessels and is carried to the heart and 

 HOOK WORMS tnence to tne lungs; it then passes out into 



Actual size. the air tubes and is coughed up into the 

 (Adults) throat and swallowed. It attaches itself 

 to the inside of the digestive organs, where it lives 

 as a parasite on man, producing laziness, lack of am- 

 bition, and a loss of desire for bettering his condition. 

 The disease can be cured with about fifty cents' 

 worth of medicine and a pair of shoes to prevent the 

 reentrance of the worm, but the people must also be 

 taught to be clean about their homes and also to continue 

 wearing shoes during all seasons of the year. The greatest 

 task in the way of curing the southern people of this 

 disease is in educating the people who have no desire for 

 anything better and who lack ambition. Educating such 

 a group of people is a very slow and difficult process 

 and since they do not have the means and a desire for 

 getting it, education is also a very expensive process. 

 John D. Rockefeller has given more than one million 



