MAP-CHANGING MEDICINE 



307 



It is within this zone that most of the 

 world's backward peoples live, and there 

 is much ground for saying that perhaps 

 the chief part of their backwardness is 

 due to the cumulative effect of the dis- 

 ease — physical, economic, intellectual, and 

 moral — upon the race. 



More serious, indeed, than the high 

 mortality rate among individuals of the 

 living generation is the accumulating de- 

 terioration of the race, due to poverty and 

 its consequences, transmitted to future 

 generations. 



When operating in conjunction with 

 that other microscopic monster, the ma- 

 laria germ, the hookworm is doubly an 

 evil, and both diseases reach their highest 

 development in the same environment — 

 the hot, damp regions of the earth. 



The malady caused by the hookworm 

 is one of the most serious of the disabling 

 afflictions to which mankind is subject. 

 It affects fundamentally the welfare of 

 humanity over vast and populous regions, 

 lowering the victims' resistance to other 

 infections, dulling the mind, sapping the 

 strength. Its effects express themselves 

 in stunted mental and physical growth 

 and lead to degeneracy and decay. 



With its onset insidiously gradual, it is 

 far less spectacular than smallpox or yel- 

 low fever ; but the deaths directly or in- 

 directly traceable to it are higher in per- 

 centage than those traceable to almost 

 any other disease except tuberculosis. As 

 a slow-acting cultivator making the hu- 

 man system a fertile field for the grim 

 sowers of fatal infections, it is, perhaps, 

 with the exception of malaria, the world's 

 outstanding malady. 



MAKING THE HOOKWORM PREACH 

 SANITATION 



Yet, owing to the fact that its every 

 stage is so well known, that the methods 

 of combating it are so dramatically ef- 

 fective, and that those who are cured so 

 quickly begin to experience the joys of 

 living once more, it makes itself the most 

 readily and successfully used of all dis- 

 eases with which to point a community 

 toward a goal of better health. 



As stated previously, a dose of Epsom 

 salts, castor oil, or other purgative, a dose 

 of the oil of thyme, or chenopodium (the 

 former from a plant that grows in our 



gardens, and the latter from one that is a 

 cousin of the common lamb's quarter ) , 

 followed by another dose of Epsom 

 salts — and presto ! scores and hundreds 

 of small worms are expelled from the 

 system and may be exhibited before the 

 victim's eyes. 



Presently the erstwhile victim, relieved 

 of the inexorable board bill of vitality 

 which his hundreds of sponging guests 

 forced him to pay, begins to feel his "pep" 

 returning, his strength coming back, and 

 his whole life being transformed from a 

 dragging existence into a quick-stepping, 

 energetic activity. 



These dramatic results, widely attained, 

 constitute such a convincing ''before" and 

 ''after" exhibit that doubting Thomas 

 himself is made to believe, and even the 

 backward community that still doubts the 

 efficacy of vaccination against smallpox, 

 that still pooh-poohs the value of water- 

 purification against typhoid, that still be- 

 lieves tuberculosis is hereditary and not 

 infectious, becomes a center of enthusi- 

 asm for hookworm-control. 



SEED THAT HAS BEEN WELL SOWN 



The hookworm, therefore, lends itself 

 admirably to the cause of community 

 sanitation, as the entering wedge through 

 which the shackles of fogeyism are 

 broken, and through which an opening is 

 made for that faith and cooperation which 

 is the very foundation stone of preventive 

 medicine. 



To-day those Southern States' commu- 

 nities whose health organizations took up 

 the anti-hookworm war have the satisfac- 

 tion of knowing that hookworm disease 

 has been greatly reduced, both in severity 

 and prevalence ; that the people have been 

 enlightened as to its importance, its relief, 

 and the means of its final control ; that 

 permanent agencies committed to its elim- 

 ination have been rooted in the soil ; and 

 that a sustaining public sentiment has 

 been created in the interest of more gen- 

 eral measures for the better protection of 

 the public health. 



Through the spirit of health progress 

 thus created, legislative appropriations for 

 public health purposes in the South have 

 increased more than 500 per cent during 

 the past decade ; full-time county health 

 organizations are being developed ; and ; 



