1904-5. j Ankylostomiasis , or the Miners' Worm Disease. 819 
to the parasite. All patients who harbour the worm do not equally 
suffer. It is the ill-fed, the poorly-clad, and the badly-housed 
miners who suffer most. 
Although the Sopron colliery is well conducted, and is in many 
respects a model mine, yet the officials have great difficulty in 
getting the men to use when underground the receptacles provided 
for their dejecta. In Westphalia, not only does the law enforce 
obedience to this requirement, the miners themselves see that none 
of their colleagues break the rule ; but in Austria there is no power 
given to mining officials to enforce this salutary recommendation. 
The hospital at Sopron-Brennberg is in the village, a mile or s© 
from the mine. It is the colliery hospital, and is not exclusively 
devoted, as most of those in Westphalia are, to the treatment of 
ankylostomiasis. There is accommodation for twenty-four patients. 
I examined six infected miners at the hospital, one of whom had 
been put upon treatment a few hours before my visit, and who 
had passed seventy fully-developed worms, some of which were 
gorged with blood. In some of the female worms there could he 
seen fertilised and unfertilised ova. 
In Hungary, coalminers are liable to skin eruptions as a con- 
sequence of the pitch-like character of the coal; in the Dolcoath 
mine in Cornwall the men suffer from a peculiar eruption known 
as “bunches.” Since the coolies of Assam and agricultural 
labourers in hot countries, who work in the fields with their bare 
feet, suffer from a similar kind of eruption, it is believed that the 
dermatitis and the accompanying boils are a consequence of the 
irritation caused by the entrance of the ankylostoma larvae into 
the skin. 
The date of the introduction of ankylostomiasis into Cornwall is 
not known. The manager of the Dolcoath mine, Mr Thomas, 
informed me that the men had been for a long time the subjects 
of anaemia and shortness of breath on the slightest exertion, and 
that they were unable to work. At first it was thought that the 
symptoms were caused by the presence of bad air in the mine 
owing to faulty ventilation, but chemical analysis of the air 
showed that, on the whole, the air was pretty pure. It was not 
until a microscopical examination of the stools of some of the 
anaemic miners was made, and the presence of excess of eosinophile 
