1904-5.] Ankylostomiasis, or the Miners’ Worm Disease. 813 
Ankylostomiasis, or the Miners’ Worm Disease. By 
Thomas Oliver, M.A., M.D., LL.D, E.R.C.P., Physician to 
the Royal Infirmary, and Professor of Physiology, University 
of Durham, College of Medicine, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 
(With Two Plates.) 
(Address delivered at the request of the Council, March 27, 1905.) 
By the terms “ankylostomiasis,” “miners’ anaemia,” and the 
“miners’ worm disease,” is meant a malady due to the presence in 
the small intestine of numerous slender worms called Ankylostoma 
duodenale , — dy/aiAos, crooked, o-ro/xa, a mouth, and duodenale , 
because usually found in the upper part of the small intestine. 
Although the disease is known to have existed for long in 
Egyptian and Tropical countries, it was not until the huge mining 
engineering operations connected with the tunnelling of the Alps 
at Mont Cenis and St Gothard for railway extension were in 
progress that the disease attracted public attention in Europe. 
During the piercing of these Alpine heights the parasite was the 
cause of considerable ill-health and of loss of life among the 
miners, especially at the St Gothard. For a considerable length of 
time the true nature of the malady was not recognised. It was 
owing to the fact that as anaemia was one of the principal physical 
signs of the malady the disease came to be called miners’ 
anaemia , and as the men worked in tunnels, the term “la maladie 
des tonnelles ” was also given to it. After the discovery of the 
parasite in the small intestine of affected miners, the designation 
miners’ worm disease came to be applied to it, and it is by this 
name that it is commonly known in this country. 
Although admittedly a medical subject, ankylostomiasis yet 
presents many economic problems for solution, biological questions 
waiting to be answered, and hygienic requirements that have yet 
to be met. On the Continent the spread of the disease has given 
rise to considerable friction and ill-feeling between nation and 
nation, and has been the cause of occasional international mis- 
understanding. Although, therefore, very largely a medical 
question, ankylostomiasis, from its many-sidedness, is a subject 
worthy of the consideration of this learned Society. 
