MAP-CHANGING MEDICINE 



305 



USING THE ELEPHANT TO ADVERTISE GOOD HEALTH IN LEE COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI 



After the people of this county saw the benefit of "unhooking the hookworm, ,r they 

 decided to wage war on infectious diseases in general. Even the circus elephant was pressed 

 into service to proclaim the importance of the campaign. 



tion and sanitation learned during the 

 World War should have driven them- 

 selves home in the minds of those who 

 think in terms of world welfare. Taught 

 that epidemic diseases, which plainly con- 

 stitute the major menace to civilization in 

 peace times, can be mastered, the sani- 

 tarians threw themselves into the fray 

 with redoubled energy. 



Casting about in the early days for the 

 best pathogenic foe to attack in a great 

 after-the-war campaign for international 

 health, many of these agencies decided to 

 concentrate on hookworm disease. For 

 here was a human ailment sapping the 

 strength of hundreds of millions of peo- 

 ple throughout the frostless belt of the 

 earth — a principal cause, indeed, of their 

 individual and collective exhaustion. 



Xo other disease is as easily cured. 

 The demonstration both of its cause and 

 elimination was amazingly simple : a dose, 

 say, of Epsom salts, a dose of thymol, 

 another dose of salts, followed by the 

 elimination of scores and even hundreds 

 of life-sapping worms. 



The effect on the patient was so benefi- 

 cent that he who ran might note it ; the 

 result to every community in which the 

 work was undertaken was that the public 

 acclaimed its success, and made ready to 

 carry the campaign forward with its own 

 funds ; the outcome was that, having be- 

 gun a war on the hookworm, communi- 

 ties gradually found it worth while to ex- 

 tend the campaign to other forms of in- 

 fection, and to sanitation in general. 



Tetrachloride of carbon, a simple and 

 popular "cleaner," has recently been tried 

 with marked success as a substitute for 

 thymol, but whether it will become the 

 favored vermifuge in hookworm removal 

 depends on further tests. 



HALE THE PEOPLE ON EARTH LIVE IN THE 

 HOOKWORM ZONE 



Reaching as far north as the latitude of 

 Nashville, Tennessee, and Osaka, Japan, 

 and as far south as that of Yaldivia, 

 Chile, and Wellington, New Zealand, the 

 hookworm zone of the earth embraces 

 more than half its population. 



