1904 - 5 .] Ankylostomiasis , or the Miners Worm Disease. 815 
diagnosis and treatment of ankylostomiasis. These men are now 
holding medical mining appointments all through Germany. On 
the date of my visit to the hospital I found thirty patients suffering 
from the miners’ worm disease. 
On the following day we visited the Lothringen mine, 
about three miles from Bochum, and, with Dr Tenholt and a 
mining official, descended to one of the levels in the pit, fully a 
thousand feet below the surface. Along the sides of some of the 
main ways were seen every forty or fifty yards a covered iron box 
containing a pail, which served as the underground closet for the 
miners. Occasionally these receptacles were placed in recesses in 
the rock and screened off by a piece of sacking, while the soil 
round about was strewn with quicklime, supposed to be destructive 
to any faecal matter that might be dropped upon the soil or upon 
the boots of the miner. Two thousand men are employed at the 
Lothringen mine, and of these 1600 work underground. A few 
years ago the number of infected miners in this pit was 72 per 
cent., but under Dr Tenholt’s supervision and treatment there 
were last June only 8 per cent, of the men infected. Within 
the last ten years Dr Tenholt has treated four thousand miners 
for ankylostomiasis at this pit. One of the disused galleries 
which we visited Dr Tenholt had voluntarily allowed to become 
infected, in order to ascertain the length of time it required for the 
ova deposited by infected miners to develop into larvse, and he 
found in this particular part of the mine, where the temperature 
was fairly high and moisture sufficient, that in fourteen days the 
ova had become converted into mobile larvae. All along the main 
ways in the pit were accumulations of muddy water and sludge, 
in which were myriads of the larvae of the ankylostoma. These 
active organisms live and thrive upon any organic matter in the 
water, and they attack the wooden props, wriggling upwards to 
the extent of fully three feet above the soil, causing the props to 
become extremely moist and soft, and rendering them unsafe as 
supports. These wooden props have in consequence to be fre- 
quently changed, thus adding to the cost of working the mine. 
At the Erin pit, a few miles further away, I w^s particularly 
struck with the sanitary arrangements provided for the men at the 
surface. Close to the mouth of the shaft were large bathrooms 
